While major parties eagerly press their plans to make it easier for first homebuyers to enter the market, they are more reluctant to reveal how much they want property prices to rise.

Anthony Albanese and Peter Dutton have put forward competing visions on housing for their signature policies as they enter the second half of the election campaign.

Labor is offering an expansion of a scheme for lower deposits, while the coalition has pledged to make interest payments tax deductible for five years.

But senior figures from both major parties have evaded questions about the extent to which they would welcome wider increases in home values for owners.

Mr Dutton said house price growth should be “sustainable” in coming years while arguing a property would be able to be left for the next generation to succeed.

“We want it to be an asset that increases in value as you get toward retirement and ultimately, one day, you can leave to your children as an asset that will help them in their lives,” he told ABC News.

“You don’t want to wake up in two years’ time and find that the value of that house has gone down. We don’t want that situation for Australians.”

Opposition housing spokesman Michael Sukkar said he wanted to see property prices increase, but not by large amounts.

“In the long run, I mean, I think it’s unquestionable we all want to see wages outstripping the growth of housing, but housing to steadily increase, not dramatically increase,” he told ABC Radio.

“For most people, the difficulty we’ve seen in housing in recent years has been clearly that, prices of homes outstripping wages.”

Asked if he agreed with his fellow frontbencher, Mr Dutton said first homebuyers should be able to get on the property ladder.

While Treasury modelling of Labor’s housing policy said there would not be a “significant” increase in property prices from its plan to build 100,000 homes specifically for first homebuyers, Mr Albanese said the document would not be made public.

“I’m not saying that house prices will rise … we don’t release Treasury documentation,” he told reporters in Tasmania.

“The idea that they put a precise dollar on something is not right.”

The Greens’ housing spokesman Max Chandler-Mather said the housing policies of both major parties resembled a “raging house fire” and increasing property prices would keep more people out of the market.

He said house prices needed to be kept the same so young people had a chance.

“The good compromise is we stop house prices increasing completely, stay the same, and give wages a chance to catch up,” he said.

Andrew Brown
(Australian Associated Press)