‘Something is broken’: Jim Chalmers warns housing market driving voters away from major parties
Make us a preferred source
Make us a preferred source on Google
The news: Treasurer Jim Chalmers has backed Australians who think the housing market is “broken” flagging that Tuesday’s federal budget will take steps to fix some of these issues.
“People aren’t wrong to look at our housing market and think that something is broken. There’s not enough homes. Too many people are locked out of housing, particularly younger people,” he said.
“And so, these are legitimate concerns that pushes people to consider alternatives to the mainstream parties.”
Speaking alongside Housing Minister Clare O’Neil at a press conference in Canberra on Sunday morning after unveiling a $2 billion spend for infrastructure to unlock housing development, Chalmers said the upcoming federal budget is an “economic plan” and “not a political document” but will respond to “genuine pressures and concerns and anxieties that people feel, including in the housing market”.
The context: One Nation’s historic win at the Farrer by-election on Saturday has sent shockwaves through Labor’s major political rivals.
But across the political spectrum there is increasingly recognition that parts of the public are frustrated with the status quo, particularly in terms of housing and the wealth divide. Chalmers’ budget is due to include changes that affect the taxes paid by property investors, and potentially other asset owners.
Chalmers said that the government needed to take seriously “the very genuine intergenerational concerns that people have” and to make both the housing market and the tax system “fairer”.
He confirmed there would not be a road user charging system in the budget. Work on this change remains underway.
What they said: Chalmers said that Labor is “not standing still” despite remaining the “last party ... in the sensible centre”.
“And this budget is going to be a very ambitious budget, a very responsible budget, and it will deal with some of these very real concerns that people have, which we see play out in our politics,” he said.
The source: Jim Chalmers press conference
