The Australian dream is a pipe dream under WA’s housing policies

A “disappointing kick in the nuts for first home buyers” is how one property expert described Labor’s election promise to raise the stamp duty-free threshold from $450,000 to $500,000.

The derision comes because a search of online listings showed seven standalone homes in the greater Perth region were for less than half a million dollars. Seven.

WA’s stamp duty exemption threshold has barely increased in the past decade. Credit: WAtoday

Three of them needed extensive renovations — one billed as ‘renovate or detonate’. Two others were asking for $499,000 and would likely sell above that.

The key search word is ‘standalone’. There were many more apartments and units under that mark.

Aussies are sold the Australian dream of a detached home with a backyard. But the white picket fence is a pipe dream when government policies like this push young people into high-density living.

WA Labor this week revived and ridiculed comments made by Liberal candidate for Churchlands Basil Zempilas.

“Might it mean that that great Australian dream, what we grew up with, is no longer the most important thing?” he said in 2022.

Labor’s big election pitch to first home buyers also actively pushes them away from the same great Australian dream.

In last year’s May budget, the government made what Premier Roger Cook called a “significant” measure — raising the stamp duty-free threshold from $430,000 to $450,000, the first time the policy had been touched since 2014.

That was a 4.7 per cent increase, when house prices had moved 78 per cent since 2021.

Tuesday’s update was all but an admission that last year’s move didn’t go far enough.

Labor’s renewed offering is the least supportive of the major parties; the WA Liberals’ pitch is marginally better, promising a $550,000 cap, saving buyers more than $15,000 in upfront costs. Both parties want to discount stamp duty for purchases up to the $700,000s.

The Nationals and Greens hope to abolish the tax altogether.

The same industry expert who described Labor’s vow as a ‘kick in the nuts’ likened stamp duty to stealing from young people.

“The state government is making multimillion dollar windfalls off young people and has done so for years now,” Strategic Property Group director Trent Fleskens told 9 News Perth.

“Industry has been calling out for a long time now for the stamp duty-free threshold for first home buyers to be indexed to the median house price so we never have to talk about this again.”

Perth’s median price is more than $740,000 and predicted to grow.

Young Australians don’t give up on their dreams, they chase them, which is why New South Welshmen are fleeing interstate, as Sydney’s price gap between an apartment and a house grows to record highs.

This government isn’t to blame for widespread housing woes, but it’s also not up to them to determine the Australian dream, rather to help aspiring homeowners reach the same one they were given.

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