Coalition leader Scott Morrison was out early, selling his plans to drop the first home deposit dramatically. He’s counting on it to swing young votes.

Laura Daly reports.

TRANSCRIPT

This is a huge boost to first home buyers, they only need to come up five per cent rather than 20, as their deposit.

Scott Morrison, Prime Minister: “It’s targeted to those on low and middle income, so 125,000 for single income, and 200,000 if you’re both first-home buyers.”

It’s been presented as a better alternative to Labor’s reforms to negative gearing and capital gains tax, which Mr Morrison says would leave everyone at a loss.

Scott Morrison, Prime Minister: “What that means is you have fewer buyers in the market, which decreases the property value of everyone’s home.”

The Government says the Opposition’s policies simply do not support first home buyers.

Scott Morrison, Prime Minister: “Labor’s housing taxes affect everybody’s property value. It affects everybody’s rent. Rents up, values down. that’s not a good plan.”

It would be capped at 10,000 loans per year, around a tenth of the home loans given out every year.

With both the coalition and labor now targeting young home buyers, how much better do they think they’ll be?

Vox 1: “I think that sounds like a good thing, I mean houses are so expensive, so like a fifth of the price of any house, I don’t know if I’ll ever have that much, so 5% would probably be easier.”

Vox 2: “That’s pretty good I think, it’d be easier to get a house loan right?”

Vox 3: “I think it’d definitely encourage me more because then you don’t have to obviously put down as much deposit, you don’t have to make as much money.”

If the Coalition is elected, their scheme will kick in next January.

Laura Daly, QUT News.