Home ownership key election issue as property prices soar

Soaring property prices, which rose 23.7 per cent last year, have elevated housing affordability as a top priority for voters, new polling reveals.

Australian Bureau of Statistics data released on Tuesday revealed residential property prices rose 23.7 per cent last year, the strongest annual growth on record. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Nikki Short

Soaring property prices, which rose 23.7 per cent last year, have elevated housing affordability as a top priority for voters, with new polling revealing Australians were more concerned about housing costs than wages growth, immigration and training.

JWS research, commissioned by the Housing Industry Association, shows the federal government is under pressure to get more Australians into homes despite local and state governments overseeing the bulk of property taxes and red tape.

Half of the 1500 Australians interviewed by JWS in January were in marginal seats, including Bass, Boothby, Brisbane, Corangamite, Cowan, Dobell and Chisholm.

A total of 34 per cent of people rated housing affordability among the three most important issues facing Australians, ahead of climate change, with greatest concern raised by adults aged 18-34.

Just under 70 per cent of Australians believe governments have a role in helping people into homes, with 53 per cent rating the federal government poorly on housing affordability.

Australian Bureau of Statistics data released on Tuesday revealed residential property prices rose 23.7 per cent last year, the strongest annual growth on record.

Hobart (+29.8 per cent), Canberra (+28.8 per cent) and Brisbane (+27.8 per cent) led the pack, with Sydney (+26.7 per cent) and Adelaide (+23.9 per cent) also recording surges. Melbourne (+20 per cent) registered its biggest annual rise since mid-2010, while Perth rose by 15.7 per cent and Darwin by 13 per cent.

Housing Minister Michael Sukkar is understood to be finalising a property-focused package ahead of the March 29 budget, which is likely to extend and expand existing first-home buyer and single parents schemes.

The JWS research said 57 per cent of Australians believed the pandemic had made it more difficult to buy a home, 75 per cent wanted everyday Australians to own a home and 70 per cent felt it was more difficult for young adults to purchase a home compared with 10 years ago.

HIA managing director Graham Wolfe said “Australia needs a commitment to policy settings that look to the decades head, not merely election cycles”.

“In Australia, owning a home should be an achievable goal, but housing affordability challenges are increasingly dampening the aspirations and dreams of too many Australians,” he told The Australian.

Mr Wolfe said government policies “must focus on supporting housing supply, the delivery of affordable land, reducing the tax burden on housing, ongoing investment in skills and training, and the elimination of unnecessary red tape intervention”.

Liberal MP Jason Falinski, the government’s housing supply and affordability inquiry chair who will release a new report on Friday, said helping Australians into their own “castle” would be achieved by fixing “oppressive and officious big-state regulation, muddle-headed central planning and slimy taxation of new home buyers”.

Speaking to the UDIA on Tuesday, Mr Falinski said Australia’s democracy was “underpinned by homeownership … and the solution to our nation’s problem is not incredibly complicated”.

“We need to increase the housing supply across Australia, just like Menzies did in the 1950s,” Mr Falinski said.