Australian political leaders launch election campaigns focused on first-time homeowners

MELBOURNE, Australia (AP) — Australia’s rival political leaders offered Sunday competing policies to help Australians buy a home ahead of the nation’s first federal election in which younger voters will outnumber the long-dominant baby boomer generation.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and opposition leader Peter Dutton officially launched their parties’ campaigns ahead of the May 3 elections.

Helping aspiring homeowners buy into a national real estate market in which prices are high and supply is constrained due to inflation, builders going broke, shortages of materials and a growing population was central to both campaigns.

“Buying a first home has never been easy, but for this generation, it’s never felt further out of reach,” Albanese told his supporters in the west coast city of Perth.

“In Australia, home ownership should not be a privilege you inherit if you’re lucky. It should be an aspiration that Australians everywhere can achieve,” he added.

The governing center-left Labor Party promised Sunday 10 billion Australian dollars ($6.3 billion) in grants and loans to build 100,000 new homes over eight years exclusively for first-homebuyers, who would only have to pay a 5% deposit instead of the current minimum 20%, with the government paying the remainder.

Opposition promises to reduce housing demand

Dutton’s conservative Liberal Party promised to ease demand for housing by banning foreign investors and temporary residents from buying existing homes for two years while reducing immigration and foreign student numbers.

First-time homebuyers would also be able to claim a tax deduction on mortgage interest payments for new homes, Dutton said.

“Today, I bring a message of hope to all Australians seeking to own a home of their own. I will be a prime minister who restores the dream of homeownership,” Dutton told an audience in Sydney, on the east coast.

A change in voters’ age groups

The focus on younger Australians’ struggle to buy or even rent a home reflects a political reality that the majority of voters in Australia are no longer baby boomers, who have for decades been the dominant demographic typically defined as born between the end of World War II and 1964.

Generation X — who followed the boomers— Millennials and Generation Z constitute just over 50% of the voters in this election.

Voting is compulsory in Australia so voter turnout is high across all age groups.

A report from Melbourne’s Monash University last week found Millennial voters and younger were most concerned with housing, jobs, climate change and health services.

Government accuses opposition of mimicking Trump administration

The government has accused the opposition of planning to slash public sector jobs and services by mimicking Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency in the United States.

Opposition senator Jacinta Nampijnpa Price said she was not referencing U.S. President Donald Trump when she told supporters on Saturday her administration would “make Australia great again.”