Opposition targets Qld’s national-low home ownership in election bid

Queensland’s opposition wants to boost Queensland from having Australia’s lowest home-ownership rate to the highest by 2034.

Opposition leader David Crisafulli on Sunday morning made home ownership a central feature in the next Queensland election, to be held on October 24 next year.

Opposition leader David Crisafulli targets Queensland’s low home ownership rate 12 months from the 2024 Queensland election.Credit: Tony Moore/Facebook

In a speech at the LNP’s annual state executive meeting at Eaton’s Hill Hotel on Brisbane’s northside, Crisafulli outlined a new housing plan and the LNP’s campaign slogan: The Right Priorities for Queensland.

“This announcement is a clear demonstration of having the right priorities that will guide us in finding the solutions to one of the biggest challenges facing our state,” Crisafulli said.

“And that is falling rates of home ownership.”

The 2021 Australian Bureau of Statistics show Queensland’s home ownership rose slightly overall between 2016 and 2021, but fell considerably among younger Queenslanders.

In 2021 63.5% of households in Queensland were homeowners (owned outright or with a mortgage). This was a slight increase from 62.2% in 2016.

Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2021 Census snapshot

“The Great Australian dream of owning a home has become an unattainable nightmare for too many Queenslanders,” Crisafulli said.

“And we must end that.”

Crisafulli said Queensland has the lowest home-ownership rate in Australia at 64 per cent and only 35 per cent for young Queenslanders aged between 25 and 29 years of age.

“Queensland’s fall in home ownership over half a century has been three times the national average,” he said.

“The biggest impact has been on younger Queenslanders. In 1971, 53 per cent of 25-to-29-year-old Queenslanders owned their own home,” he said.

“In 2021 that has plummeted to 35 per cent. Queenslanders aged 30 to 34 … have also been pushed out of the market, with their figures falling from 63 per cent to 49 per cent over the same period.”

State Opposition wants to lift Queensland’s home ownership rate from last to first by 2034.Credit: Penny Stephens

Crisafulli announced “an ambitious 10-year plan for Queensland to have the highest home-ownership rate in the country by 2034.

“I acknowledge this is bold. To go from last place to first within a decade. But, we owe that to a generation of young Queenslanders.”

How the LNP says it will raise home ownership in Queensland

• review the First Home Owners Scheme thresholds
• prioritise new tax relief options, examining transfer duty and concessions
• appoint shadow treasurer David Janetzki as Home Ownership minister
• prioritise options to open up more land for new housing

States’ home-ownership rates

• Tasmania - 71 per cent
• Western Australia - 70 per cent
• South Australia - 69 per cent
• Victoria - 69 per cent
• New South Wales - 65 per cent
• Queensland – 64 per cent

Source: Australian Bureau of Statistics 2021.

Crisafulli said David Janetzki would begin work immediately as shadow minister for home ownership, a position he would hold if the LNP won government in October 2024.

In his speech Crisafulli made no mention of the recent draft South East Queensland Regional Plan, or of similar plans to review the mix of housing throughout Queensland to match Queensland’s new household mix.

The plan identified that 900,000 new homes, units and townhouses would be needed in south-east Queensland to accommodate another 2.2 million people by 2046.

There are now fewer nuclear families - two parents with two to three children - seeking homes in Queensland.

Crisafulli mentioned, but did not discuss, the impact of Queensland’s increasing mix of rental homes (29.5 per cent), linked to the rising house prices.

Queensland’s Housing Minister, Meaghan Scanlan, said the speech contained little new detail and said the state government already had “generous” First Home Owners Scheme concessions that could save buyers $15,000 on homes up to $550,000.

“One of the biggest drivers for home ownership is that wages have not kept pace with the growth in house prices,” Scanlan said.

“Yet LNP members have said they want to break the back of Queenslanders’ wages and conditions.

“One year out from an election, Queenslanders deserve more than empty LNP promises and slogans.”

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