It was the election with the national housing crisis at its heart and the Australian people made it very clear.
The Coalition didn’t have the answers.
In the wake of the ALP’s resounding victory, which took just a handful of hours to emerge on Saturday night, the Coalition’s failure to sway voters has, naturally, come under intense scrutiny.
Its lack of policies around property that resonated with voters has been a large part of that criticism.
Among those policies was a $5-billion infrastructure program to unlock up to 500,000 new homes, which, thanks to a lack of detail, was greeted with no small amount of scepticism.
The Coalition also campaigned on its previously revealed plan to allow first home buyers to draw down on their superannuation, giving access to up to $50,000 to help fund mortgage deposits.
While that proposal had won some support, it got the thumbs down from many of Australia’s top economists, who said the measure could prove highly inflationary, among other issues.
Similarly, its plan to allow mortgage interest for first home buyers to be tax-deductible was roundly criticised for its likely inflationary and regressive effects.
It has also been pointed out, post-election, that the Coalition’s rejection of the Green’s policies around housing supply, affordable housing and help for renters did it no favours.
The ALP, meanwhile, went to the polls spruiking an extension of schemes introduced during its previous term, including a $10-billion promise for its first-home buyers’ scheme to encourage 100,000 more homes.
It also had its Help to Buy shared equity scheme, under which the Government pays up to 40 per cent of the house price, to point to.
If it was these policies per se, or the lack of detail and depth to the Coalition’s, that swayed the voting public remains to be seen.
What is clear, however, is that Labor has, with its landslide win, been endorsed to follow through on its policies, be they under way or promised, and fix the crisis that is crippling the Australian property sector.
As Urban Taskforce Australia chief executive Tom Forrest has pointed out, as cliched as it may be, now the election is over, it is time for the Federal Government to get back to work.
“Housing affordability and housing supply featured large during the campaign,” Forrest said.
“The key now is for the Government to strike while the iron’s hot.
“If legislation is needed to support the delivery of Labor’s $10-billion, 100,000 new homes commitment—then pass it through the parliament now and get on with it.”
The states have, in the past year or so, made many changes to how they enable home development. The Federal Government’s support of that is crucial to its success, be it reform to migration around labour, infrastructure funding, material supply assistance or any other factor that affects getting homes out of the ground.
This has been a pivotal election, nowhere more so than for the development industry.
The Albanese government’s next steps are keenly anticipated and will be equally keenly scrutinised.
