‍Thursday 2 July 2026

Mallee’s newest and stressed home buyers are at risk as Australia’s housing market buckles after Labor’s shock $77 billion tax increases, Member for Mallee Dr Anne Webster said today.

National home values fell 0.4 per cent in June – the sharpest monthly drop since December 2022 – with values down 0.7 per cent over 3 months.  Buyers’ confidence has deteriorated sharply, with auction clearance rates across Victoria falling to around 47 per cent, well below long‑run averages.

Prominent Horsham real estate agent, Wes Davidson, expressed his shock, saying:

“We are now seeing the biggest lack of confidence in real estate that I have ever seen in over four decades in the industry. I am seeing clearance rates at record low levels across the country. They are lower than in the first couple of weeks of COVID, and that was a pretty uncertain time. Now people are saying we're in a more uncertain time because aspirations are being killed by these regulations”, Mr Davidson said, in comments Dr Webster repeated in the House of Representatives before Question Time on Tuesday.

Dr Webster noted that in parts of Mallee, while house prices have doubled in recent years off a low base, new and financially strained homeowners alike are at risk from a drop in price due to the collapse in market confidence.

“We all want house prices to be more affordable, especially for young Australians trying to buy their first home – but the answer is not for Labor to crash the value of the family home,” Dr Webster said.

“The Albanese Labor Government’s intentional crashing of the housing market risks hurting the very people who Labor partnered, stretching homebuyers’ finances to get into the market.  Many buyers recently entered the market with deposits as low as 5 per cent, some through Labor’s new home equity scheme.  

“If prices fall by 10 per cent, first home buyers risk going into owing more than their house is worth - a serious debt trap for families who were already stretched getting into the market.”

The Coalition opposed Labor’s home equity scheme, saying it was a home nationalisation scheme, poor value for taxpayer money and represented ‘the Government buying your home, not you’.  Labor’s scheme sees the Commonwealth take an up to 40 per cent equity stake in new home purchases, or up to 30 per cent in an existing home.

The Coalition’s competing Home Guarantee policy allowed first and other disadvantaged home buyers to buy with a 5 per cent deposit, with the Commonwealth as guarantor of the loan, but – unlike Labor’s scheme – the home buyer retains 100 per cent ownership.

Dr Webster said the Coalition challenged the Housing Minister in Parliament this week on how many Australians are already in the red – and how many would be if prices fall further, after Labor’s shock $77 billion May budget tax hit that they did not seek a mandate for at the May 2025 election.

“Right now, families are being asked to make the biggest financial decision of their lives in a market shaped by falling confidence and Labor policy chaos,” Dr Webster said.

Mr Davidson savaged Labor’s political competency in comments Dr Webster also shared in Parliament:

“This is the dumbest economic policy we have and the dumbest government I've seen, both state and federal, in terms of housing policy. It's wrong. It's criminal. And hopefully they'll both get the boot at the next election,” Mr Davidson said.