House price modelling remains secret

At Senate Estimates, the Treasury Secretary could not explain why the Labor Government hasn’t supplied the modelling they commissioned on price impacts of the 5% deposit scheme.

Labor announced in April that the 5% deposit scheme would be uncapped and no longer means tested.

In July, they belatedly decided it would be a good idea to model any price impacts. Treasury apparently produced modelling which predicted a 0.6% increase over 6 years.

This was blown out of the water with a 1.2% increase in house prices in the month of October alone - the first month of the new scheme's operation.

Despite the Prime Minister talking about a 0.5% increase, which has proven to be wrong by both Treasury and the market, the documents have not been provided. The Government continues to cover up the modelling.

This morning, the Secretary said the modelling was provided as advice to the Government in paper form (via a brief) but would not explain why it had not been provided when sought via FOI. The Secretary said she would try and provide the modelling when the Housing Division attends Senate Estimates later today.

While many factors influence house prices, clearly Labor’s expanded 5% deposit scheme is a contributing factor, and the Government should come clean on how the modelling was done.

This is Australia, and we expect to be provided modelling produced by the Treasury for the Government. This includes the briefing documents and the underlying calculations.

Australians who are now squeezed out of the market due to Labor’s pump priming of prices deserve to see what their Government was told or warned about before the scheme was brought forward to October.

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