Scott Morrison has suggested Australians looking for rent relief should instead look to buying a home as thousands struggle with rising rental prices.
Treasurer Josh Frydenberg unveiled his fourth budget on Tuesday xjmtzywevening with a promise to double the government’s first homebuyer scheme to 50,000 places.
The program lowers the minimum deposit required down from 20 per cent to five per cent, with the government securing the difference.
But as Today Show host Ally Langdon pointed out on Wednesday morning, while it was being touted as a cost-of-living budget, it included nothing to help many Australians struggling with rising rental prices.
However, the Prime Minister suggested the way to solve rental affordability was by boosting rates of home ownership.
“(The) best way to support people who are renting a house is to help them buy a house. And over the last three years, we've got over 300,000 Australians directly in their own home, and particularly single mums,” he told Nine.
But Langdon hit back: “I'm not talking about homeownership here. I’m talking about rental relief.”
He insisted she was missing the point.
“People who are buying houses are renters,
“Ensuring that more renters can buy their own home and get the security of homeownership – this is one of the key focuses of this budget and was one of the key pledges I’ve delivered on since the last election,” Mr Morrison said.
A recent Australian Council of Social Services and UNSW report showed rents in regional areas were now 18 per cent higher than they were prior to the pandemic.
With an election just around the corner, the Prime Minister hit the airwaves to sell his budget as a win for voters who are struggling with the cost of living.
A one-off tax break of $420 will go to more than 10 million Australians earning up to $126,000 a year. The government will also cut the fuel excise in half to 22.1 cents for the next six months.
Asked if Australians should see this as a bribe, Mr Morrison denied he was trading taxpayer dollars for votes.
“The cost of living pressures that have been faced by Australians are real,” he told ABC’s AM.
“What we're doing is giving Australians a shield to protect themselves.”
Mr Morrison also deflected criticism that his budget does not include enough funding for natural disaster mitigation, as residents in Lismore evacuated for the second time in 24 hours.
“The scenes in Lismore are very distressing … But the trauma of these events, it must be unbearable for people up there in and around Lismore today. And we‘ll be there with them as we have been and will continue to be,” he told ABC News Breakfast.
The budget papers revealed the clean up from the current floods, the black summer bushfires and the 2019 North Queensland floods cost the government $10.3bn.
With climate experts warning natural disasters will only pick up in frequency, the government has been criticised for not urgently investing in mitigation measures.
But Mr Morrison insisted the funding is there, and the government is learning how to better respond to crises.
“We’ve been through a lot of these natural disasters and every single time we learn how we can do it even better the next time,” the prime minister told ABC’s AM.
“Take the Brisbane flood in particular, we ensured that we got four times the number of ADF almost a week earlier than we saw in the 2011 floods.
“We’ve got over $1.3 billion paid out directly into people’s pockets to 1.4 million Australians. That’s real support, real fast, right when they need it.
“I know I’ve got critics who say you shouldn't be spending money on helping people during these crises. But we do because we know Australians need it because we know the need is real.”
