Dutton’s son says he ‘can’t afford a house’
Source: ABC TV
Opposition Leader Peter Dutton has brought his 20-year-old son to a press conference to highlight Australia’s housing woes.
“I am saving up for a house and so is my sister, Bec, and a lot of my mates,” Harry Dutton, who has been travelling on the Coalition campaign bus, told journalists in Brisbane on Monday.
“As you’ve probably heard, it’s almost impossible to get in, in the current state. So I mean we’re saving like mad but it doesn’t look like we’ll get there in the near future.”
Dutton senior, who has a notable sideline in property transactions going back decades, refused to commit to helping his children into properties of their own.
“You brought your own son Harry out here, he spoke about how hard it is to save for a deposit. So in that case, you’re doing pretty well yourself. Why won’t you support him a bit and give him a bit of help with getting his house?” a journalist asked.
“I haven’t finished the excellent points I was making,” Dutton said.
“The next point as to why people should vote Liberal is we can manage the economy well. Labor always trash the economy, which is why we have had almost two years of households going backwards under this government. Australians can’t afford three more years of Labor. Now, is there another one over here? Just behind you.”
Monday’s developments came as both major parties pressed ahead with generous revamped housing sweeteners, despite concerns from economists that billions of dollars will be wasted in a vote-buying exercise.
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At its campaign launch on Sunday the Coalition announced it would make interest payments on the first $650,000 of a mortgage tax deductible for first-home buyers.
That could save the average first-home buyer $10,000 a year.
But the plan has few friends among economists, who say it would disproportionately benefit high-income earners, push up house prices up increasing demand, and blow a hole in the federal budget.
Grattan Institute chief executive Aruna Sathanapally said the policy was likely to cost taxpayers $1.25 billion in forgone revenue across four years and was not money well spent.
Dutton side-stepped economists’ concerns the plan only drive up prices and disproportionately benefit higher income earners, arguing it would help boost housing supply.
“It’s going to encourage construction, which is really important,” he earlier told Seven’s Sunrise program.
“This is the best opportunity for young Australians to achieve home ownership. The Labor Party wants people to be renters for life. I want people to get into housing as quickly as possible. I want to be the prime minister for home ownership and housing accessibility.”
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said the policy meant renters would be “subsidising the mortgages of homeowners across Australia” as they struggled to get into the market.
Labor, meanwhile, has announced it will allow people to secure a mortgage with only a 5 per cent deposit with the government going guarantor.
It also pledged to build 100,000 new homes for first-home buyers under a $10 billion plan unveiled at its campaign launch in Perth.
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Albanese started Monday at a housing development project in Adelaide to spruik his policies alongside top ministers and South Australian Premier Peter Malinauskas.
“These two policies will make a significant difference to increasing supply but also importantly, to getting first-home buyers and particularly young Australians into their first home,” he said.
Treasurer Jim Chalmers denied Labor’s deposit policy would encourage people to borrow more and risk defaults on their loans, leaving taxpayers potentially on the hook.
“We know from the existing program that there has been an absolutely minuscule amount of defaults on these debts,” he told ABC TV.
He was also critical of Dutton’s policies, saying they were going to “borrow and burn another $10 billion and still provide no ongoing cost-of-living help for people who are doing it tough”.
“Then he’ll claw that back with permanently higher income taxes, lower wages and secret cuts to pay for his nuclear reactors,” he said in reference to the Liberals’ pledge to repeal Labor’s tax cut.
Elsewhere, support for Dutton and the Coalition has continued to slip, according to the latest Newspoll.
The poll was taken ahead of the official launch of both campaigns on Sunday, where billions of dollars in pre-election sweeteners were unveiled.
Labor will introduce a $1000 instant tax deduction, saving people up to $320 a year and reducing the hassle of producing receipts, while the Coalition promises a one-off tax offset of up to $1200.
Coalition campaign spokesman James Paterson criticised Labor’s tax cut of up to $268 in 2026/27 and $536 each financial year after, while defending the coalition’s sweetener.
He said the one-off tax offset was timely, targeted and meaningful.
“It’s not baked into the budget forever, costing billions and billions and billions over many years but it’s going to give people much more when they actually need it,” he said.
-with AAP
