In brief
- Millennials and Gen Z are slowly becoming the dominant force on the nation's electoral roll.
- The weight their votes increasingly carry put them at odds with the interests of older generations used to getting their way.
Young homeowner Mika likes Treasurer Jim Chalmers' housing policies but the treasurer's preferred choice of coffee is a problem.
"Does anyone know how to make a long black?" she asks media and ministerial staff waiting in her small Canberra apartment while her husband Matt busies himself with the coffee machine.
The couple are hosting the treasurer and prime minister at a media event designed to sell Labor's most controversial federal budget since coming to power.
Their excitable pet dog, one-and-a-half-year-old golden retriever Pikelet, bounds around the combined dining and living rooms, licking cameras, chewing on bags and demanding pats from anyone who will give them.
"I'm actually the first person in my family to own a home that they live in. Even my parents weren't able to do it until my dad was like, in his 60s," Mika tells Chalmers and Anthony Albanese.
Mika Rosewarn and Matt Gover — a 27-year-old public servant and a 26-year-old high school teacher, respectively — are two of the 250,000 people who have bought a home with the federal government's five per cent deposit scheme.
They're also the kind of voters Labor is hoping to win over with sweeping changes to tax on investment properties.
With the median house price increasing more than 400 per cent in the past 25 years, young people's ability to buy a home has become a totemic issue in Australian politics, and both the government and opposition are keen to tell voters they have a plan.
On the Labor side, a paring back of tax concessions for landlords in last week's budget is expected to make housing a less appealing investment, marginally reducing property price growth.
The move has made some investors furious but the government is gambling it will win enough support from young people so the anger won't matter.
The coalition, meanwhile, plans to tie the nation's migrant intake to the number of homes being built each year.
This would, Opposition Leader Angus Taylor says, free up more homes for Australians while delivering one of the biggest cuts to migration in Australian history.
"Mass migration is changing Australia for the worse," he told parliament in his budget reply speech on Thursday night.
"The number of people coming in far exceeds the number of houses built ... my goal is more houses for Australians and a fairer go for young Australians."
The coalition has promised to repeal Labor's changes. Labor has blasted the coalition's proposal as a "bin fire".
The duelling housing policies, along with a related fight over tax, will likely frame the next federal election as both major parties make a pitch to young voters who feel the ambitions of wealthy investors have been put ahead of theirs.
But how much difference will the reforms make?
Under Labor's policy, property prices will continue rising — but about three per cent slower than they would have otherwise.
The impact could be greater if spooked investors avoid pouring money into housing while they wait to fully understand the changes, Commonwealth Bank senior economist Trent Saunders tells AAP.
"When you look at Sydney and Melbourne, house prices are already declining," he says.
"There's already a downturn in housing sentiment and there's a risk that this could just feed into this and create a bit more of a swing in the cycle."
Saunders hasn't closely analysed the coalition's policy but speaking generally, says migrants play an important role in Australia's economy, filling crucial jobs in sectors such as agriculture and aged care.
"Higher population growth does put a bit of upward pressure on house prices. The ideal situation is for housing supply to keep up," he says.
While analysts are divided over the impact of Taylor's promised changes, the political intent is more straightforward.
By leaning into populist rhetoric about "mass migration," the opposition leader is signalling his intent to take on One Nation head-on, after the right-wing party demolished the Liberal vote in the Farrer by-election days before the budget.
Former Liberal strategist Tony Barry says Taylor's new policies might not be enough to lift his party's anaemic primary vote.
"Their single biggest problem is they are unforgiven for their most recent period in government, where they are perceived to have not addressed any of these issues," he tells AAP.
"There's no expectation in the electorate that they have got the ideas or the will to fix housing, though the budget in reply now gives them something to talk about."
And while Labor is hoping its shake-up of negative gearing and capital gains will win over younger voters, Barry — now a pollster with RedBridge — says the government has its own challenges.
"The risk for the Labor government is that they might be over-promising and under-delivering," he says.
With voters becoming more evidence-based and increasingly cynical about political promises, there could be a backlash at the 2031 election if the changes don't make a big difference to housing affordability, Barry says.
While the threat from One Nation is less imminent for Labor, the government has carefully calibrated its policies to respond to the rise and rise of Pauline Hanson's party and the populist right in other global democracies.
Chalmers admitted as much in his post-budget speech.
"When you look around the world, from (Nigel) Farage to Farrer, the choice this moment presents for parties of government is clear," he says.
"We are the last ones standing in the sensible centre of Australian politics but we aren't standing still."
Millennials and Gen Z are slowly becoming the dominant force on the nation's electoral roll and pollsters estimate their political weight will grow in the coming years.
That means voters like Mika and Matt can expect more sweeteners between now and the 2028 election, with the major parties vying for support from the now crucial age group.
For now, having achieved the stability of home-ownership, they're happy.
"We love it here. We're so lucky ... it's nice not to move every 12 months," Mika says.
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