Treasurer says buying a house without a dual income has become an almost ‘unreachable goal’

This article is more than 3 years old

This article is more than 3 years old

Labor has ridiculed a warning by Scott Morrison that buying a house without a dual income has become an almost “unreachable goal” in parts of Australia, saying he must have been asleep for the past few years because it was not a new problem and the government had failed to act.

In an advance copy of a speech to be given in Sydney on Monday, Morrison said property prices had risen so much since 2000 that a 20% deposit on a median home loan was now more than 100% of annual household disposable income.

“This is slightly above the decade average but well above the 60% levels that were the norm prior to 2000,” Morrison’s speech said.

Housing affordability crisis not down to unsustainable rising prices, says Morrison Read more

He promised the housing affordability problem would become a priority for the Turnbull government.

Labor’s social services spokeswoman, Jenny Macklin, said Morrison could not be serious about housing affordability if he was unwilling to reform negative gearing and the capital gains tax discount.

“Honestly, this treasurer must have been asleep for the last couple of years,” Macklin told ABC radio on Monday.

“This is not a new problem. We have a serious problem of housing affordability in this country and the treasurer should actually do something in his own area of responsibility.

“[He should] address the problems that negative gearing and capital gains tax present to the problem of housing affordability, not just blame the states.

“That’s actually where the problems lies, at the federal level.”

Morrison’s speech, to be delivered to the Urban Development Institute of Australia in Sydney, said a huge switch occurred in the proportion of single-income and dual-income households between 1981 and 2011.

In 1981, the proportion of property-buying households under the age of 44 was split fairly evenly between families with single and dual incomes.



But, by 2011, the proportion of single-income households had fallen from roughly 50% to less than 20% and the proportion of dual-income households had risen from about 50% to more than 80%.

It said there had been a big fall in the number of first home buyers, with the proportion of home loans to first home buyers falling to just 13.4%, the lowest since February 2004.

He pointed to the Harper review of Australia’s competition laws, released in March last year, which recommended state and territory governments include competition principles in their objectives for planning and zoning rules.

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He criticised Labor’s plan to abolish negative gearing on established housing, saying it was “ill-conceived”.

“Labor sought to demonise property investors, portraying negative gearing as a concession for the rich, rather than the reality of being a long-established tax principle predominantly used by mum and dad wage-earning investors, such as nurses, teachers, police and defence force personnel, while leaving professional investors untouched,” the speech said.

Speaking last week, Morrison said Australia’s housing affordability problem was a complicated one.

“Where I am particularly concerned is for those trying to get into the market,” he said. “Those trying to get into the market in Sydney for example, and New South Wales, it is taking two extra years now on the estimates from the research that has been done than it was five years ago. I suspect, in many cases, a lot longer than that.



“The difficulty is for people to be able to get into that market. Now the way you address that principally is in the area of supply.”