Australian election 2025 live updates: Labor and Coalition make duelling pitches to first home buyers ahead of official campaign launches
Labor and Coalition make duelling pitches to first home buyers
We’ve heard housing announcements from both major parties today aimed at first home buyers. Here is a recap of what each is offering:
Labor has announced a $10bn plan to help build 100,000 new homes nationwide for first home buyers.
Under the plan, Labor would open the program to all first home buyers, allowing them to secure a home with only a 5% deposit, with the government guaranteeing part. It will also announce moves to help buyers avoid pricey mortgage insurance.
The housing minister, Clare O’Neil, said the sods on the developments would begin turning in the 2026-27 financial year and homeowners would start moving in the year after. She also said the homes “in all likelihood” would be income tested.
Meanwhile, the Coalition would allow first-time buyers of newly built homes to deduct mortgage payments from income taxes, the ABC reported. The policy would mean a family with an average income would be about $11,000 a year better off – or $55,000 over five years.
We’ll bring you more details on the Coalition’s plan as we learn more.
Key events
Greens continue call for negative gearing changes amid major party housing announcements
The Greens have responded to the major parties pledges to first home buyers, saying they are only acting after “years of Greens pressure.”
In a statement, the party said that while it is “good to see Labor starting to take the problem seriously, by leaving investor tax handouts flowing and rents uncapped, the problem will only get worse.”
The Greens said it wouldn’t stand in the way of Labor’s changes to the first home guarantee scheme or further investment in housing construction. But the party reiterated its call for changes to negative gearing and the capital gains tax discount.
Leader Adam Bandt said:
To fix the housing crisis we urgently need to reform negative gearing and the capital gains discount, cap rent increases and get the government to build homes people can genuinely afford.
Tinkering around the edges means allowing house prices to continue to soar and generations of renters locked out of affordable housing altogether.
Sarah Basford Canales
Liberal royalty arriving at party’s campaign launch
Liberal royalty is arriving at the party’s campaign launch in western Sydney this morning.
Former prime ministers, Scott Morrison, John Howard and Tony Abbott, are in the crowd along with frontbenchers, Jane Hume, Michael Sukkar and James Paterson.
Just moments ago, media travelling with the opposition leader were cordoned off from talking to politicians while waiting for formalities to kick off.
Outside of the venue, Greenpeace activists held a rally against nuclear power – though it couldn’t be heard or seen by journalists in the holding pen.
Chalmers says being treasurer is ‘more than enough’ for him when asked about potential leadership aspirations
Taking a final question, Jim Chalmers was asked about the PM’s upcoming speech today – and whether he hopes to one day be in that position, launching the Labor party’s campaign is the leader of the party?
But Chalmers answered:
I would be very happy to be Anthony Albanese’s treasurer for as long as possible, because we are delivery cost of living relief, building Australia’s future, making the economy resilient in uncertain times, and that’s more than enough for me.
Chalmers asked whether Labor has any further major announcements coming
Early voting will begin in one week – can voters expect any more major announcements from Labor, or is what the party is offering largely already on the table?
Jim Chalmers said people “will have to wait and see,” and continued:
We have made it pretty clear that whether it was the announcements we made early in the year, the announcements Katy Gallagher and I made on budget night, subsequent announcements by the prime minister in the election campaign, that we have front-ended a lot of our announcements. We have done that … so people can get their head around them and understand the choices … No doubt there will be more to say over the course of the next 20 days or so in this election campaign.
Chalmers says Coalition’s tax cut a ‘reckless distraction’ from nuclear policy
Asked if the Coalition’s tax cut, unveiled today, is more attractive to voters than what Labor has previously announced, Jim Chalmers said:
Peter Dutton is saying he will borrow and burn another $10bn, still provide no ongoing cost-of-living relief and then claw that back with permanently higher income taxes and lower wages and secret cuts, which will make Australians worse off.
Now we know they are making this up as they go, because in their usual shambolic way, Peter Dutton and Angus Taylor have been saying for weeks there is no room for tax relief, and they have been banging on about sugar hits. So let’s see this for what it really is – this is a desperate and reckless distraction from their nuclear reactors policy, and the American inspired Doge-style cuts they will have to make to pay for them.
Where will $10bn come from for Labor’s housing plan?
The treasurer, Jim Chalmers, is speaking with the ABC about the Labor’s $10bn plan to help build 100,000 new homes for first home buyers.
How will this be paid for? He said:
It is a combination – $2bn in grants, and $8bn in loans. What that $10bn will do will be to help address the biggest issue in housing, which is housing supply, and related to that, construction costs.
Josh Butler
Protestors outside Albanese’s hotel in Perth
Protesters backing the live sheep export industry, including a number of people in Liberal party shirts, are protesting outside the front of Anthony Albanese’s hotel in Perth this morning.
The Labor campaign launch is happening in this city in a few hours. Protesters have found where the Albanese camp is staying, and about two dozen people with placards reading “keep the sheep” are on the footpath outside. The group is protesting Labor’s decision to ban live sheep exports.
There are a number of people in the blue campaign shirts of local Liberal candidate Mic Fels. A number of trucks and cars are also circling the block, bearing similar placards.
We saw a few Labor ministers, on their way from the hotel to the campaign launch, get jeered by protesters as they emerged from the lobby into their waiting van.
Police and security are keeping a close eye, but despite the noisiness, the protest seems pretty well-behaved.
King weighs in on potential North West Shelf extension
Madeleine King was also asked about the North West Shelf, with Woodside wanting an extension.
The government has pushed back approvals until after the election. Is this becoming an irritant in WA? King said this is a “significant extension that has been sought,” with a six-year assessment process.
Now what needs to happen is a proper process around approvals. So, nothing has been put off. It is just allowing a department the time to make the right decision, and what we see coming from the Coalition is making decisions without seeing the facts or seeing the case presented to them. And that leads to the apprehended bias chaos that the Coalition left us with when they left government is few years ago. And quite frankly, I’ve been dealing with for two years, some of the court cases as a result of those things.
The Coalition is promising a decision on Woodside’s plan to extend its gas processing plant in WA’s remote north-west out to 2070 within 30 days of winning the election.
Labor MP says Coalition’s housing plan would help people ‘already able to get on property ladder’
Labor MP and resources minister Madeleine King has also just spoken with the ABC, about the duelling housing policies put forward by the major parties today for first-home buyers.
Asked how attractive the Coalition’s policy will be to voters weighing up the two policies, King said that given the “back flips we’ve seen from the Coalition, I wouldn’t be surprised if this policy lasts the week – or doesn’t last the week.”
We’ll see how that goes. We do have to see the detail. But what it looks like is that this is helping people who are already able to get on that ladder, and that’s great for those people. But there are a lot of people who can’t get on to that housing ladder, and that’s what Labor’s policy is going to enable.
Paterson dodges questions about Price’s Maga remark
James Paterson was also asked about Jacinta Nampijinpa Price’s remarks yesterday that she wants to “make Australia great again”.
Was this an unwelcome comment? He responded:
Australia is a great country already but we don’t have the best government in the world, and frankly we need to change the government at the next election if we want to get our country back on track.
Would he use this phrase himself? Paterson dodged the question:
The Liberal party and the National party will get inflation down, build more homes and keep Australians safe. Only by voting for your Liberal and Nationals candidate can you get our country back on track.
Is Australia already great at the moment? Paterson repeated himself and said:
I think it is a great country but we don’t have the greatest government in the world, that’s for sure.
Paterson says Dutton will give more details on Coalition housing policy at campaign launch today
The Coalition’s campaign spokesperson, James Paterson, is speaking with the ABC right now and asked about its policy – as reported by the ABC – to allow first-time buyers of newly built homes to deduct mortgage payments from income taxes.
Paterson said he had seen “speculation in the media this morning about a pending future announcement from the Coalition”.
It certainly sounds like a very exciting and potentially transformative policy for first home buyers, but it is not my role as campaign spokesman to announce policies before my colleagues … If your viewers stay tuned into ABC for the next 50 minutes or so they will hear more from Peter Dutton about this and many other areas of policy from the Coalition.
Dutton is in Sydney today for the Liberal party campaign launch – we’ll bring you his comments once he begins speaking later on.
