Australian residents will no longer compete with foreign investors at auction or when buying an existing home, regardless of who wins the next election.
Labor is set to freeze out foreign buyers from purchasing already built homes for two years, beginning on April 1.
Housing Minister Clare O’Neil said the policy would “free up thousands of properties for Australians”.
“We’re in the midst of a housing crisis because for 30 years governments around the country haven’t built enough homes for the Australians who need it,” she said.
Opposition Leader Peter Dutton first proposed the policy in his budget reply last year.
“They absolutely bucketed this policy for the last 12 months and now five minutes before the election they copy it,” opposition housing spokesman Michael Sukkar said.
Greens housing spokesman Max Chandler-Mather also said Labor was copying the Coalition.
“It will not touch the sides of the housing crisis,” she said.
The Coalition is pushing on with its plan to allow first home buyers to access $50,000 from their superannuation.
“I want to see Australians first into housing and that includes first generation Australian citizens,” Dutton said.
The Greens criticised the policy.
“Are they seriously suggesting the new deal for young people is you might get to buy a home but you have to drain your retirement savings to do it,” Chandler-Mather said.
The Coalition leads Labor in new polling out today.
A YouGov poll of 40,000 voters has the coalition ahead 51.1 per cent to 48.9 per cent on a two-party preferred basis and winning 73 of the 150 seats in the house of representatives.
But Dutton would still have to negotiate with the crossbench if those figures translated into election results.
Some of them want to see larger changes to the way the parliament runs.
“[It’s] not just about the day of forming government but also about how we make decisions in the parliament,” teal independent Allegra Spender told the ABC’s Insiders today.
