Australian Labor Opposition Leader Kevin Rudd says he will hold a national housing affordability summit later this month to look at ways to ease the burden on families.
Releasing a paper in Brisbane entitled New Directions for Affordable Housing, Mr Rudd said representatives from the finance and property development industries and state governments would be invited to the summit in Canberra to work on solutions to the growing crisis.
Mr Rudd said land release strategies, urban infill, high government infrastructure charges and skills shortages in the building sector would be examined.
``Once we've had this national summit on housing affordability, we then want to work through the individual responses from the finance sector, from the housing sector and others, to then define and shape exactly the proposals we'll take to the next election,'' Mr Rudd said.
Mr Rudd said one new initiative raised in Labor's paper was allowing for new home deposit savings vehicles, which allowed higher returns and tax advantages to ``supercharge'' the savings capacity of young Australians.
Contributions would be made from pre-tax dollars and earnings could be taxed in the same way as super nest eggs with the money only able to be withdrawn to buy a first home.
``Our national government has to show leadership to find better ways of making it easier for working families to save for a deposit on their first home, and to deal with the overall problem of affordability,'' Mr Rudd said.
Source: Courier Mail
