Greg Jericho
Chief economist

Dutton: “In relation to our policy, we are creating 500,000 new homes through our $5 billion fund to help councils with critical infrastructure.”

This is an old policy by the Liberal Party the figures are rather on the dodgy side. But helping “council with critical infrastructure” is a nice way of saying helping property developers.

Rather than spend $5bn building new homes over 5 years (which would almost be double what is currently spent building residential homes by the public sector across Australia), instead the Liberal Party proposes spending $5bn over 5 years to allow property developers to build infrastructure so that they can then sell land for a greater profit.

And what infrastructure? Well, the announcement is wide-ranging – “the roads… the water, the sewerage, the power, the telecommunications”. But while you might think this shows how large the announcement is, actually it just reveals how laughable it is to suggest this will unlock the construction of 500,000 homes over 5 years.

In the last financial year, $43.2bn was spent on infrastructure building roads, water storage and supply, sewerage and drainage, electricity generation transmission and distribution, pipeline and telecommunications.

Does anyone really believe an extra $1bn a year is going to “revive the home ownership dream and boost building across Australia.”