Queensland election 2017: Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk ’s $30m bid to lure first-home buyers

ANNASTACIA Palaszczuk has made a pitch to Queensland voters, young and old, today as she officially launched her re-election campaign, and first home-buyers may want to pay close attention.

The popular $20,000 first home buyer’s grant will be extended until June next year should Labor win a second term. Picture: Nick Clayton

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ANNASTACIA Palaszczuk has made a pitch to Queensland voters, young and old, today as she officially launched her re-election campaign on the Gold Coast.

The popular $20,000 first home buyer’s grant will be extended until June next year should Labor win a second term, while employers will be offered a financial incentive to take on mature-age jobseekers.

The extension of the first home buyer’s grant, which applies to newly built dwellings, is expected to cost $30 million.

As her motivation for the extension, Ms Palaszczuk was expected to reference her grandfather’s quest to give her family a better life.

Ms Palaszczuk believes the grant will ensure more young people can enter the property market to shore up their family’s future.

More than 10,000 applications worth $200 million have been approved or are being processed since the grant was increased from $5000 to $20,000 in July 2016, with 80 per cent of those applications from home buyers in regional communities.

In her pitch to older voters, Ms Palaszczuk announced a new “boost” under the ­Government’s Back to Work program specifically ­targeting jobseekers aged 55 years and over.

“Under the boost, employers who take on a mature-age jobseeker will be eligible for up to $20,000,” the Premier said of the promise.

Should Labor be re-elected, the initiative will start on January 1 and run until June 30.

“The evidence shows it becomes more and more difficult for older workers to find work again if they lose their job, with workers aged 55 and over recording the highest average duration of unemployment and the highest incidence of age discrimination,” she said.

“These are workers who need to work and want to work, and we are going to back them all the way.”

She said that the Government would appoint an ambassador for workplaces that take on mature workers, and it would establish an awards program to reward Queensland businesses that “demonstrate best practice in employing older workers”.

Originally published as Queensland election 2017: Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk ’s $30m bid to lure first-home buyers