On the house
The five big policies announced by Anthony Albanese and Peter Dutton on Sunday, at a combined cost of $24 billion, may be too much for voters to consume. Advantage Labor.
At the last election, it was widely noted within the Coalition that its “superannuation for housing” policy was well received by many young voters but released far too late in the campaign.
It is curious, then, that the Coalition appears to be repeating the same mistake with its radical pledge to allow first home buyers to deduct the interest they pay on the first $650,000 of a mortgage for a new built home for five years. The policy, which will apparently cost just $1.4 billion over the forward estimates, would be available to individuals earning up to $175,000 and joint applicants with combined incomes of up to $250,000.
Campaign launches are usually reserved for cash-splashes, not complicated structural changes to the tax system which require months of explaining.
It's likely that the decision to roll out this policy so late is because Peter Dutton and his team only settled on the exact details very recently. Opposition housing spokesman Michael Sukkar had been working on the policy for some time. But as I reported last week before the policy was announced, the plan had many internal critics and there have been multiple versions of the policy considered.
