Is what it says true?
The Australian Labor Party is stating the Liberal Party of Australia's $5B infrastructure policy would only unlock 70,000 homes as opposed to the 500,000, that 110,000 homes would be lost through other Coalition policies, and that house prices would rise ~$100,000.
I couldn't find the source for these numbers so I did some digging to get the bottom of them. And now that I have, here are my findings and thoughts.
1) 70,000 homes being built out of the $5B infra fund is based on the prior National Housing Infrastructure Fund (NHIF) which is claimed to have spent $73,000 for each dwelling it enabled.
This is a long way from the $10,000/lot suggested by UDIA National, and if you extrapolate then yes, this would only unlock around 70k dwellings.
It's a cute comparison, noting the detailed operation of the $5B fund policy has not been announced. By the same logic, Suburban Rail Loop spends $524k/dwelling it unlocks($36.7B/70,000)!
A massive barrier for new growth areas remains funding major enabling infrastructure. It is often too costly for a single developer to fund the major upfront works alone for a whole catchment, leaving the whole area in hiatus.
$5B deployed on the right enabling infrastructure, assuming the money is properly accessible to developers (not only to States or Councils per current rules), with a mix of grants and loans, could very plausibly do a lot of heavy lifting, getting much closer to 500,000 dwellings than 70,000. I see this working like QLD's catalyst funding on steroids.
2) 110,000 homes lost comprises two components being:
a) unwinding the balance of HAFF – 30,000 social/affordable homes and b) undoing MIT changes for foreign investors which Property Council of Australia says would unlock 80,000 *extra* BTR units over a decade.
The 30,000 claim is valid if HAFF is cancelled, although it would be partially offset if a Social Housing Accelerator Fund was reinstated.
The 80,000 – well, I've been skeptical that the 15% MIT rule change is so significant as to unlock that much additional BTR, so I think this is a stretch. But I wouldn't want to see it repealed either.
3) House prices will rise ~$100,000 based on the "Super for Housing" policy. Views on this policy are highly contentious, and I think there is some truth to this *if* we don't get #housingsupply improving significantly in parallel.
If this policy is combined with the infrastructure fund working properly and actually delivering new, relatively affordable homes supply, I would expect the overall upward pressure on housing prices to be minimal, likely far less than the impacts of recent NCC changes.
⚽🏉🏀Either way, it's game on for May 2025. Expect lots more fun from all the players over the next 2 months.
🤔 What do you think about these claims and policies?