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Labor is trying to entice voters with a tempting social housing programme, but a closer look reveals several pitfalls. There are better ways to ensure housing affordability.

Alongside his noir new look, Opposition leader Anthony Albanese has unveiled a raft of what appeared to be “Australia first” policies.

The opposition leader declared on Sunday that a Labor government would ‘buy Australian’, manufacture precious metals in Australia, stand up for Australian workers, and help Australian women earn more.

Labor’s biggest enticement? A radical shakeup of housing affordability for lower-middle-income earners.

Government Housing

In 2021, Albanese promised a ‘five-year plan’ to save Australians afflicted by an over-inflated property market.

A Labor government, he petitioned, would cap property prices, and devote $10 billion of taxpayer funds to open up 30,000 new social housing dwellings.

This will be — a summary provided by Labor asserted — paid for by ‘investment returns from the Housing Australia Future Fund,’ which is to be created by an Albanese government.

Additionally, The Sydney Morning Herald explained,

‘A Labor government would contribute up to 40 per cent of the purchase price of a new home and up to 30 per cent of the purchase price for an existing home, with people being able to buy out the Government’s stake over time.’

This includes a property cap on market prices in metropolitan and regional centres.

For example,

‘The property price would be capped at $950,000 and could save homebuyers up to $380,000 on a new house and $285,000 on an existing house.’

Albo’s affordability model also promises to build on the current Morrison (LNP) program whereby the Government goes guarantor for first home buyers ‘of up to 15%, helping 10,000 eligible owners, per year, ‘avoid paying mortgage insurance [which can cost] up to $32,000.’

However, the gloss is lost in the small print.

Excluded

Eligibility criteria for the extended guarantor program pretty much exclude low-income earners, primarily single-income families.

Labor’s plan only applies to locals who ‘have a taxable income of up to $125,000 per year for singles and $200,000 a year for couples.’

Countering Albanese’ vote-catcher promises, Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s finance minister, Simon Birmingham (LNP-SA) told the ABC:

“Our [current] policies are delivering outcomes for Australians, and importantly you get to own your own home. You don’t have Mr Albanese at the kitchen table with you owning part of your home.”

When Australians look at the choice between what Labor is offering and the Coalition’s current and future plans, Birmingham added, Australians fully owning their own home, rather only owning a part of their own home, “makes the Coalition’s policy a far more compelling” choice.

Birmingham, noting the success with the LNP’s own housing affordability programs, stated that if re-elected the Morrison government will be expanding the current guarantor program from 10,000 places to 50,000 per year.

Thus negating the ridiculous cost of mortgage insurance, which when pinned alongside ludicrous rental prices makes saving a decent deposit for homeownership in Australia unattainable.

Stealthy Socialism

One Nation’s Pauline Hanson called the voter candy, “another step closer to socialism; the first step to fulfilling the World Economic Forums ‘Great Reset’.”

Adding, “If we’re to make housing affordable for Australians, start by closing the door to foreign ownership, and lower immigration numbers — it’s not rocket science.”

 

To those paying close attention, it’s been obvious for a while that the Australian real estate market has outpaced wage growth, and the goalposts keep moving.

Coincided with strict subjective lending criteria, this has made it almost impossible for young people and working-class families to enter the housing market.

Labor’s latest electioneering “promissory note” to voters is a serious temptation to those who’ve been left behind by real estates, bankers and debt-crazed investors.

This is why it’s no stretch to state that Labor’s proto-socialist (Frankfurt school-esque) promises, to well-positioned-but-not-quite-there first home buyers (read Aussie battlers), puts Labor back in the race to Kirribilli.

Distraction

Thanks to gaffes, and a woke defence of radical-leftist politicking, Albanese has been on the back foot since campaigning for the election began.

Shifting the election narrative to housing affordability away from an embattled defence of transgenderism over and against women’s rights is a smart manoeuvre by Labor party strategists.

Putting Australian workers before wokism will regain traction, and legitimacy with Australian voters who have ditched the Labor party because of its far-left lean.

The fresh, politically sober, “back to basics” look — the secure a “better future, better government” for Australians — platform could be an election-winning formula.

Ultimately though, Albanese’s “five-year” plan is a trap.

Behind Labor’s polished image of Anthony Albanese as a neo-noir “working-class” man, higher taxation waits like a ravenous wolf.

Hidden behind his promises sits another blatant reminder: vote Labor, get Socialism.

Better Options

There are far better proactive steps government can take without increasing its reach into our lives.

Instead of increasing the gruelling government overreach, politicians serious about solving housing affordability should be aiming to:

1. Increase incomes by reducing income and payroll tax.
2. Remove all “no jab, no job” mandates.
3. Secure jobs by cementing protection for informed consent into the constitution, as part of wider constitutional reform. One which serves the people, by unblurring the lines between the separation of powers, caused by political manipulation of the language in the construction.
4. Allow people to use their own money.
5. Free up superannuation, so that first home buyers, per person, can withdraw up to $20,000 from their super accounts to add towards their home loan deposits.
6. Release more land for residential development, with water capture infrastructure attached.
7. Freeze foreign investment in residential zones. Cancel all, and stop any, future plans for Net Zero; which end in hidden carbon taxes.
8. Set up a Royal Commission into the Real Estate industry, and the apparent monopolisation of the property market.

Don’t be seduced by the dazzle. Labor’s newfound pro-worker proposals only serve Labor’s woke ideals.

The long-term approach to solving housing affordability is creating opportunity, raising incomes, allowing workers access to their own money, limiting foreign investment in residential zones, improving building approval turnaround times, reducing land, and insurance taxes — all of which hinder homeownership.

Albanese’s vote-grab will lead to an expanded government. A government that has already proven that in the right environment, it has no problem with abusing its power.

Soviet-lite socialism isn’t the solution.

There’s a big difference between politicians doing something, and politicians making it look like they’re doing something.

What looks good for us, isn’t always what’s good for us.

If the government can take your job under the guise of “the greater good”, with part ownership, they can take your house, and maybe the cat, kids, and the whole kaboodle too.

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Originally published at Caldron Pool. Photo by Andrea Piacquadio.