Neale Prior: Coalition’s double dip into super savings a dangerous sugar hit that won’t fix our housing crisis

A housing supply crisis has grown on Anthony Albanese’s watch, with the 160,000 new homes commenced in 2023 being less than one-quarter of Australia’s population growth.

The Federal Government has a 10-year strategy called the National Housing and Homelessness Plan, with a variety of social housing incentives and limited tax incentives designed to support build-to-rent developments.

Labor, at best, is flitting around the edges of a problem decades in the making.

But the Coalition is looking at building an even bigger one by expanding a woeful policy unveiled in its failed 2022 election to allow people to withdraw super for a home deposit.

It is looking at increasing the proposed limit from $50,000, with housing spokesman Andrew Bragg in one recent interview throwing around a figure of $90,000.

Whether it is $50,000 or $90,000, it’s an idea that should not be considered until wiser heads than those in Mr Albanese’s Cabinet have fixed a housing crisis.

It is a crisis driven by a lack of new and used homes to house the 500,000-plus people who will migrate to Australia over the next year.

It’s financially dangerous to potentially pump billions more into housing markets before dealing with the growing imbalance between demand and supply.

Pulling money out of super will just be another sugar hit for a sector in need of serious policy reform — from Parliament House in Canberra down to the backrooms of councils in the cities and towns.

Pulling money out of the super system will just make housing even more unaffordable for young people without parental support, healthy incomes or big super balances.

Opposition Leader Peter Dutton now has a massive opportunity to capitalise on the Coalition’s traditional strong suit of immigration.

The record influx of migrants under Labor has added to the housing crisis while failing to do enough to attract and keep the skilled overseas worker critical to solving or nation’s skills shortage.

Skilled workers are critical to fixing Australia’s housing supply crisis, but Australia’s remarkably high visa application prices and long processing times are keeping away good people.

Businesses, both big and small, have been crying out for the easing of restrictions on bringing talent into a nation where investment is being deterred by a lack of workers.

But Dutton has left the housing crisis to the likes of Mr Bragg, a former Ernst & Young accountant and long-time Financial Services Council lobbyist.

Liberal Party types weened on business degrees instinctively hate industry super funds. They hate the funds boasting about fantastic performance, their inextricable links to pesky unions and the career avenues they create for pinkos.

The $278 billion industry fund Australian Retirement Trust is chaired by former Queensland treasurer Andrew Fraser, whose political career was cut short in the Liberal National Party’s 2012 landslide.

We have the likes of former Labor treasurer Wayne Swan chairing the $87b Cbus fund and former health minister Nicola Roxon chairing both the $79b HESTA and the merged industry fund lobby group Super Members Council.

Paul Keating’s trusted adviser Don Russell, who played a major role in creating the modern super system, chairs the $317b-plus giant AustralianSuper.

At March 30, industry funds held $1.18 trillion of retirement savings — compared with $720b entrusted to retail super funds.

It’s just too much for the Liberal elite to see so much money tucked away in low-fee environments generating so little income for their traditional supporters like financial planners, stockbrokers and accountants.

Any measures to get the money away from these socialist sinkholes are worthy of elitist consideration, no matter their dangers of inflating house prices and jeopardising retirement savings.

The Coalition rightly copped plenty of flack from finance and super industry groups when it unveiled the original $50,000 plan.

We will never really know how the idea went down with voters because there were so many factors contributing to then-prime minister Scott Morrison’s tired team being thrown out of office.

If the Liberal Party is to reclaim the ascendancy on economic matters, it must not double up on dangerous ideas from past campaigns.

It must find ways to remove the blockages to large-scale residential land and building development across Australia.

It should use its understanding of economics and investment to make housing more affordable for Australians and stop a trend that is turning a life essential into a luxury for many people.

The Liberals should not rule out limiting its beloved negative gearing to new developments, and potentially expand Labor’s limited build-to-rent incentives that take effect on July 1.

They should be improving incentive and regulatory certainty for large scale investments in affordable housing, while dropping its ideological resistance to necessary schemes like Labor’s Housing Australia Future Fund.

Social housing does not mean socialism.

And please, please do your very best to tackle those annoying NIMBY and urban greens whose convenient truths prevail in inner-city and wealthy suburbs.