Median priced dwellings out of reach in every capital city except Melbourne under Labor’s Help to Buy Scheme

Melbourne is the sole capital city in which a first homebuyer could purchase an average priced property using the Albanese government’s Help to Buy scheme.

Jim Chalmers visits a construction site in the western Sydney electorate of Parramatta on Tuesday. Picture: AAP

Anthony Albanese’s $5.5bn Help to Buy scheme assisting first-home buyers to enter the market has been labelled an “absolute ­disaster” by the Coalition, amid revelations Melbourne is the only capital city in which a purchaser could buy an average-priced property using the program.

The Coalition attack came as both major parties boasted they had the better housing and ­migration policies, with Peter Dutton trying out a new slogan for a “better Australia, not Anthony Albanese’s bigger Australia”, and Jim Chalmers accusing the Opposition Leader of solving the housing crisis “by making the skills shortage worse”.

Under Labor’s shared equity scheme – which is stalled in the Senate, with both the Coalition and the Greens vowing to oppose it – a first-home buyer needs a minimum 2 per cent deposit to enter into a contract with the government, which will contribute up to 40 per cent of the property’s purchase price.

Properties can be valued up to a certain amount in each capital city, with the cap on Sydney house prices set at $950,000 and the cap on Melbourne prices at $850,000, followed by Canberra at $750,000, Brisbane at $700,000 and Adelaide, Perth and Hobart all at $600,000.

The Coalition’s analysis of the government’s price caps and Core­Logic’s median dwelling values for April found only in Melbourne was the average-priced property ($783,261) less than the price cap under Labor’s scheme. The remaining median dwelling values were all above the caps.

Average-priced apartments, however, all fell under the caps, leading opposition assistant home ownership spokesman Andrew Bragg to declare: “Labor’s only demand side policy is a sick joke. It should surely cover all bases, not exclude houses in virtually every market. Many Australian families cannot or do not want to live in units. It’s an absolute disaster of a plan.”

Housing Minister Julie Collins, who visited a housing project for essential workers in Sydney’s medical precinct of Westmead on Tuesday alongside the Prime Minister and Treasurer, said the “tightly targeted” scheme would help 40,000 low and middle-income people buy a home without driving up property prices.

“The Liberals’ rehashed thought bubble of raiding superannuation (to help buy a home) will push up prices, wreck people’s retirement and won’t build a single new home. That’s what the experts say, and even Peter Dutton has said accessing superannuation for housing will push up house prices,” Ms Collins said.

With housing and migration set to be at the centre of the next election, the Coalition is vowing its steeper migration cuts would make an extra 100,000 homes available over five years.

Labor wants to halve net overseas migration to 260,000 next financial year while the ­Coalition says it plans to reach 160,000 in 2025-26.

“The Albanese government has now created a ‘Big Australia’ policy,” Mr Dutton said. “They didn’t tell anybody about it before the election, they’ve just sprung it on people, and it’s at the same time that they took money out of the infrastructure program as well.”

Dr Chalmers said the government would ensure permanent migration was lower than it was when Mr Dutton was immigration minister, and would do so “in a responsible way, in a methodical and a considered way”.

“There was more investment in housing in last Tuesday’s budget than in all nine of our pre­decessors’ budgets combined. Just think about that for a moment, $6bn in new money as part of a $32bn investment in housing,” the Treasurer said.