Voters unhappy negative gearing, stamp duty not on horizon this election (2025)

Harry Jang is a 24-year-old ACT resident, who's hoping to buy his first home soon — a one or two-bedroom apartment.

So, when the two major parties launched their big housing policies on the weekend, he was watching closely.

"I think it's great. I think it provides a big spotlight and a real drive. It tells me that there is a focus on housing amidst all the economic concerns and cost of living," he said.

"As to whether the policies will work — that's a different question."

Whether it's increasing rent or mortgage repayments, Australians have told the ABC's Your Say project they are struggling more than ever with housing costs. And with a federal election around the corner, a stable and secure place to live is one of the issues younger voters want to see action on.

Harry is interested in Labor's idea to allow all Australians to buy their first home with a 5 per cent deposit.

"My concern is whether the expansion to everybody, all first home buyers, whether that will increase housing prices," he said.

He has a similar question about the Coalition plan to allow first homebuyers to deduct mortgage interest payments from their tax for five years.

"If it increases demand, does that put more money into the pocket of some other person who I'm competing against?"

Voters unhappy negative gearing, stamp duty not on horizon this election (1)

Tasmanian Declan Fahey, 29, also has questions about the Coalition's decision to restrict the tax deduction scheme to newly-built homes.

"I am a first home buyer and in the process of purchasing an existing build. I won't be eligible under this policy," he said.

"My question is — why should taxpayer funds contributed by people like me go towards tax incentives for first home buyers purchasing new builds?"

The Coalition says restricting the scheme to new builds will boost construction activity and housing supply.

Declan says he's also happy just to see the major parties talking about housing.

"It surprises me they've left it this far into the campaign," he said.

"It's good to see them finally coming to the table with some offers, but I don't agree with some of the offers that have been put forward."

Concerns housing build will still leave home buyers on the outer

Harry Jang also has questions about Labor's plan to spend $10 billion building 100,000 new homes.

"What I'm most concerned about is — and I'm sure a lot of us young Australians are concerned — where are you building these things?" he said.

"I don't want to live two hours away from where my family lives, because that's where the affordable houses are being built."

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Negative gearing, stamp duty missing from election agenda

For other young Australians, there's a lot they didn't see in the weekend's announcements.

Jessica Broad is a 27-year-old Victorian and wants to see tax reform back on the agenda, specifically negative gearing, which Labor took to the 2019 election (and lost).

"Limit the amount of investment properties one person can own. Straight off the bat," she said.

"I kind of get why it's in place, but it's just sucking the wealth from the middle class to the wealthy class."

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Jemma Myors from NSW has just bought her first home — an apartment — in her mid-forties. She also says it's time to revisit tax breaks for investors.

"I think negative gearing needs to go, but I also feel like none of our current crop of politicians is willing to engage with that.

"I mean, after what happened to Bill Shorten — and he was only going to very lightly touch that issue — nobody's going to go there."

Voters unhappy negative gearing, stamp duty not on horizon this election (4)

They also want to see action on barriers like planning restrictions on urban density, and stamp duty.

"To be frank, it seems like a butt tonne of money that I have to find to pay to the government so that I can live in somewhere that I own, as opposed to somewhere that I rent," Jemma said.

"I know one of the big issues is that we have state based laws and there's, you know, they're all slightly different. I also think that's a little bit of a cop out.

"I think if you had a housing minister who was willing to get all of the state housing ministers together the same way they did for COVID … to come together and make some agreements."

The idea of helping states move away from stamp duty towards land tax would be expensive, but has strong support from the Grattan Institute's Brendan Coates.

"What we could see if we get stamp duty reform across the line is cheaper housing," he said.

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"It has the ability to unlock 300,000 additional dwellings. That's more than a year's worth of supply without having to build a single extra home.

"That would bring down rents and house prices by up to 6 per cent, it would boost rates of home ownership across Australia by three percentage points."

As with almost every other issue this election, Your Say contributors like Jemma are telling the ABC they just want to see something being done.

"You've got to pull all the bloody levers, because they're all going to fix little bits of the issue. We need to do everything."

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Voters unhappy negative gearing, stamp duty not on horizon this election (2025)
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