Coalition and Greens to oppose Labor’s shared equity scheme

The Coalition and the Greens will oppose Labor’s key housing affordability policy, dashing hopes of easy passage through parliament.

The Coalition has criticised the scheme under which the federal government would assist 10,000 households to buy property by contributing up to 40 per cent of the deposit. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Max Mason-Hubers

The Coalition and the Greens will oppose Labor’s shared equity scheme, dashing Anthony Albanese’s hopes of securing easy passage for the key housing ­affordability policy through parliament.

A Labor-dominated Senate committee has recommended the Help to Buy Bill be passed, finding that the policy overcame some of the “access and affordability hurdles” of home ownership by reducing the upfront costs of purchasing property.

The Coalition has criticised the scheme under which the federal government would assist 10,000 households to buy property by contributing up to 40 per cent of the deposit, branding it to be a “home nationalisation policy” that would assist only a handful of buyers.

In a dissenting report advising against the bill being passed, Liberal senators Andrew Bragg and Dean Smith argued the scheme was “utterly underwhelming” and was the equivalent of “shuffling deck chairs as the Titanic sinks” due to the proposed price caps on eligible homes.

“This legislation is all about helping the government buy your home, not you, which is an entirely warped approach,” they said. “Labor has given up on home ownership.”

The Greens have slammed the government for failing to ask Treasury to model the scheme’s impact on house prices, describing Help to Buy as a “lottery” which would assist only a fraction of prospective buyers and increase house prices.

The party’s housing spokesman Max Chandler-Mather urged the government to phase out negative gearing and capital gains tax discounts to increase housing affordability.

“It is frankly a sick joke that Labor’s one policy offering on the housing crisis this year will push up house prices and help almost no one,” he said.

“Whether small or large, any increase to house prices hurts renters trying to buy a home, and almost every expert agreed, Labor’s Help to Buy scheme will push up house prices.”

The committee, chaired by Labor senator Jess Walsh, found that while Treasury had not completed modelling on the impacts of the scheme, its relatively small number of participants meant that its effect on house prices would be minimal.

“The Department of the Treasury … told the committee that while it had not undertaken specific modelling on potential inflationary effects of the Help to Buy scheme, it agreed impacts on prices would be very small for two particular reasons,” the report said. “Firstly, the size of the program in the context of the property market with half a million transactions annually is a low proportion.

“Second, this program has been targeted in its design to help low and middle income earners buy relatively moderately priced homes.”