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Canberra Today 13°/16° | Friday, March 29, 2024 | Digital Edition | Crossword & Sudoku

High land prices exclude Canberrans from HomeBuilder grant 

Canberra Liberal Leader Alistair Coe

ONLY three single residential blocks for sale in the ACT are likely to qualify for the $25,000 HomeBuilder grant, according to the Canberra Liberals. 

The remaining 355 blocks on offer are too expensive, says Opposition Leader Alistair Coe, about the federal government HomeBuilder grant, which provides eligible owner-occupiers (including first home buyers) with $25,000 to build a new home as a principal place of residence where the house and land value does not exceed $750,000.

In Canberra, he says the rising cost of land released by the ACT government means only three single residential blocks on offer are likely to qualify.

According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, it cost $440,772 on average to build a new house in the ACT in 2018-19, he says. This means that Canberrans hoping to benefit from the HomeBuilder grant can only do so if the block of land costs less than $309,228. Even if a house can be built for $350,000, just 25 blocks would be suitable.

Mr Coe says Labor’s strangling of land supply means most prospective home buyers, including first home buyers, are likely to miss out.

“This is the reality of the Labor-induced housing crisis,” he says.

“The Barr government’s agenda to maximise profits from land sales by restricting the supply of land has driven up the cost of housing to unsustainable levels.

“Labor’s housing policies will see a generation of Canberrans miss out on their dream of owning their own home in the ACT.

“Many young Canberrans and families are just looking for an opportunity get ahead. They shouldn’t have to look over the border to find it.”

Mr Coe says the Canberra Liberals are committed to releasing more land and lowering taxes to help more families afford their own home in Canberra.

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4 Responses to High land prices exclude Canberrans from HomeBuilder grant 

Hamba says: 7 July 2020 at 4:20 pm

A vote for Labor or the Greens in October is an act of wilful support for this travesty. There is no way around it.

Reply
Jon Stanhope says: 8 July 2020 at 6:56 pm

This is scandalous. There is no other way to describe the land supply and planning policy settings adopted by ACT Labor and the Greens which have resulted in the exclusion of Canberra families in the bottom two income quintiles ie 40 per cent of all Canberrans, from access to the detached housing market. Alistair Coe is correct, the only realistic option now available to working class Canberrans who aspire to live in a detached house is to move across the border into NSW.

Shane Rattenbury in launching his campaign for 4 more years as a Minister has promised to invest $450 million in public and affordable housing . Having worked with Labor as a Minister over the last 8 years to drive the ACT budget over a cliff Rattenbury chose not to explain where the money would come from to fund his sudden interest in the provision of affordable housing. Neither did he address the question why, having participated in the emasculation of every affordable and community housing program in place when he became a Minister eight years ago, anyone would believe for one minute that he has any intention or interest in undoing the damage that he has wreaked on affordable and community housing in his time as a Minister. It is an interesting election pitch that Shane is making. “ Give me another four years and I promise to undo all the damage I did in the last four years.”

Actions speak louder than words. It is clear to anyone that bothers to look at this Labor / Greens Governments record on housing that it simply does not care that the dominant housing choice of working class families is for an affordable detached house. It is an aspiration that the Government has chosen to callously ignore. What will be interesting to see is whether home owning, middle class Canberrans care or whether they are perfectly comfortable about reaping the wind-fall spike in the value of their detached houses as a result of the deliberate strangulation by Labor and the Greens of the supply of land.

Reply
Neil Goodwin says: 9 July 2020 at 12:01 pm

They are not a “Labor” Government, that’s for sure. ThereiThere fiscal priorities are all wrong but pander to the apparently apathetic, highest avg income in Oz, self indulgent “it’s all about me”, ACT Labor/Greens voters. Very sad to see what Canberra has become.

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