WATCH: Eliza Owen, head of research at CoreLogic, discusses the impact of the Federal Budget on the housing crisis.
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00:00 The federal budget had some really important funding measures for housing
00:04 and stuff that is critically needed like increases to crisis accommodation,
00:09 homelessness services, a boost for low-income renters. But in my mind there
00:15 were three big missed opportunities for the budget when it came to housing as
00:18 well. The first was better targeting of Commonwealth rental assistance. In the
00:23 past the Productivity Commission has highlighted that not everyone who gets
00:26 the Commonwealth rental assistance really needs it. So by better targeting
00:31 the payment you could save more money and reallocate funding to those who
00:35 actually do need it. The second was a bigger boost to productive capacity in
00:40 the construction sector. There's a 90 million dollar package to boost the
00:45 qualified workforce by about 22,000 people but a lot of that is coming from
00:51 training which could take years for people to become fully qualified. It
00:56 would be great to see more of an emphasis on skilled migration in the
01:00 construction sector and expediting people who are ready to go on build
01:04 sites and industry representatives have highlighted that we need a lot more than
01:10 22,000 people to meet housing targets. The third is demand. Where has demand
01:15 gone in the housing affordability and accessibility conversations? This is
01:20 another budget that misses the opportunity to make bold reform on taxes
01:24 which could make our housing market more efficient and fair.