Andrew Bolt: Why ScoMo’s housing pledge excuse hardly stacks up
Prime Minister Scott Morrison is guaranteeing five per cent deposits for first-home buyers but it’s going to belt the property market when it’s whimpering on its knees, writes Andrew Bolt.
Andrew Bolt
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Last week the Liberals hated socialism. It attacked Labor for its crazy promise to give childcare workers in the private sector a 20 per cent pay rise.
But today, Prime Minister Scott Morrison unleashed his own inner socialist, promising poor first-home buyers that the government would guarantee most of their deposit for a home loan.
What? A Liberal government going shares in buying your home?
So much for the claim that the Liberals have been taken over by the crazy Right. We’re all socialists now.
Under the Liberals’ scheme, people earning up to $125,000 (or couples on $200,000) need now pay a deposit of just 5 per cent, rather than the 20 per cent that risk-terrified banks usually insist on.
The Government’s National Housing Finance and Investment Corporation will guarantee the rest of the deposit, which means taxpayers are on the hook if the house price falls and the borrowers default.
Wow. Here is a government backing deposits for people who’ve saved least and may be the biggest credit risk.
It’s even encouraging them to take more risk.
And the excuse — that this makes buying a home more affordable — hardly stacks up.
Hasn’t the Government just overseen a 12 per cent plummet in property prices over the past year in Melbourne and Sydney?
Homes are already cheaper.
Mind you, Labor’s housing policy is much crazier — scrapping negative gearing on existing properties and halving the capital gains discount.
Labor claimed that, too, would make housing cheaper, back when house prices were soaring.
Now its tax grab is going to belt the property market just when it’s whimpering on its knees.
Again, the best thing to be said about the Liberals is that Labor would be worse.
But the Liberals’ campaign launch confirmed our political drift is to the Left.
Liberal MP Sarah Henderson opened the launch with a long acknowledgment of the traditional owners — a surrender to the new tribalism that Liberals defending individual rights should fight.
Morrison then doubled down, also promising “real action on climate change” — pretending to “stop” a warming that he pretends is a threat.
Again, Labor’s policies are more dangerous — cuts to emissions four times bigger than the Liberals, at a cost estimated at more than $250 billion by 2030.
So we drift, steadily Leftwards, and all that the Liberals can say is that Labor would be worse.
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