Govt adopts Labor policy to help regional first-home buyers crack market

A program that allows first home buyers to purchase property with either a five or two per cent deposit and avoid paying lenders mortgage insurance has been extended to include 10,000 places per year for regional areas, tripling the amount of regional Australians that can access the support.

To access the regional scheme, applicants must either build or purchase a newly built home, and earn no more than $125,000 a year and $200,000 for couples. House prices are capped at between $800,000 and $350,000 depending on the state, and location within the state.

Labor shadow treasurer Jim Chalmers said the regional housing policy looked "like a carbon copy" of what his party had already announced.

"That's a good thing, that's welcome, that they want to implement our policy," Mr Chalmers said.

Housing Minister Michael Sukkar's office rejected the idea the government had "adopted" Labor's policy, pointing out the policy was an expansion of the Coalition's Home Guarantee Scheme, which had been in place since 2020. Labor's policy will be apply to all houses, while the governments will only apply to new builds.

Regional housing is growing into a key battleground at the upcoming election, with prices rising an average of 26 per cent, outstripping growth in capital cities (21 per cent).

Infrastructure Australia recently released a report that identified housing as the biggest infrastructure problem across regional Australia, with a shortage of all forms of housing, public and private, has only made worse by the rush to the regions by city dwellers during the pandemic.

Labor housing spokesman Jason Clare said "in the ultimate third-party endorsement" the government had "copy and pasted" Labor's policy.

"We've seen prices go through the roof and a lot of young people who live in the regions being outbid, unable to be able to afford to buy their own place in the place where they grew up," Mr Clare said.

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Part of the housing problem was a lack of land approved for development, Mr Clare said, which the government had only exacerbated by abolishing the Housing Supply Council 10 years ago, whose job it was to make sure there's enough land to build on.

If elected, Labor has promised to create a National Housing Plan, that would involve all levels of government.

"You need to get the housing and planning ministers across the country meeting and working together... they don't even talk to each other about this at the moment," Mr Clare said.

Treasurer Josh Frydenberg said since 2020, the government's Home Guarantee Scheme has helped almost 60,000 home buyers purchase their first home.

"It's why, in tomorrow night's budget, we're supporting even more aspiring home owners to get into the market," Mr Frydenberg said.