Coalition housing spokesman Andrew Bragg says party needs to fight NIMBY-ism ‘cancer’, issues big house price call
Coalition housing spokesman Andrew Bragg will use a major speech to also further his comments that house prices for entry-level homes need to drop.
Coalition housing spokesman Andrew Bragg has urged the Coalition to call for the “death of NIMBYism,” labelling the anti-housing movement “a cancer,” and also say that house prices for first homes need to come down.
In his first major housing speech since inheriting the portfolio, the NSW senator will also go against his party’s right factional heavyweights in saying that cutting migration “will not singularly fix the housing crisis”.
This comes as the Liberals are set to release their migration policy principles in the coming week, with leader aspirate Andrew Hastie crediting “uncontrolled migration” as a key reason for locking “Australians … out of the housing market”.
Taking aim at the ‘Not-In-My-Backyard’ anti-development movement, Mr Bragg will say that the Liberal Party’s path back to winning inner-city seats like the teal-held electorates of Wentworth and Warringah and Labor’s Bennelong will be to boost supply in these areas.
He also notes that the number of children under four in all three electorates have decreased by more than a fifth in the last six years due to a lack of affordable family homes.
“The Liberal Party should be trying to boost supply in these areas, so future voters can settle into their first home, grow their family, and achieve the Australian dream,” he will in a speech to the Centre of Independent Studies.
Dubbing the movement as “a cancer,” he will say that “we cannot abide it in the centre-right” and that the Liberal Party “must be unabashed YIMBYs”.
His speech will also say that initiatives to boost infrastructure cannot only be reserved for undeveloped “greenfield areas,” and that the part’s past election policy was wrong.
“Our previous election policy of $5bn for essential infrastructure was good, but at the end of the day, it didn’t go far enough, as we only allowed it for greenfield development,” he will say.
“Moving forward, this will change.”
Furthering his previous comments that first homes are too expensive, Mr Bragg will say that the “social contract” with younger generations will continue to fray if “property prices continue to expand exponentially”.
“Housing cannot be a zero sum game. It cannot be treated wholly as an investment opportunity,” he will say.
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