Australian housing was already cooling before the budget – but how cold it gets depends on two key factors

Most economists believe the chronic undersupply of homes will eventually push prices higher once interest rates ease and the tax changes are priced in

The government’s property tax changes have become one of the defining political issues of Labor’s second term, drawing fierce criticism from opponents who argue they represent an “assault on aspiration” that will destroy home values.

In the three weeks after the negative gearing and capital gains tax changes were revealed in the 12 May budget, housing data has begun to show how they may affect Australia’s property market. Here’s what the data shows, and what could happen next.

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One Nation, six farcical explanations and no clearer understanding of its housing policy

Hanson’s party is leading in the polls, but it has a long way to go before being recognised as a serious political outfit

When sent out to do a cleanup job, it usually helps to not make the mess even worse.

It took One Nation six separate attempts over nearly 24 hours to clarify the basic details of their policy on foreign ownership of housing. Between Thursday night and Friday afternoon, the story turned from bizarre to farcical, with attempts to clarify the policy just making the situation murkier as Australians watched:

a Barnaby Joyce interview;

a quick do-over on Sky News on Thursday;

a Pauline Hanson social media update on Friday morning;

a Sean Bell interview, again on Sky, on Friday;

and then a 2GB spot;

before a written press release from Bell on Friday afternoon

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Yes Australia’s house prices may fall – but the decades of unchecked property price growth were the true policy failure

Instead of relying on tax-enhanced speculation, investors must now look at established properties based on actual profitability – leaving space for first home buyers

For decades, Australia’s property market has been defined by relentless price rises, reinforcing the old adage that real estate investment is “as safe as houses”.

There’s now a wrinkle in that wisdom.

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Capital city home prices fall across Australia as experts predict slump could last a year and cut values by 10%

Buyers abandon auctions and Sydney, Melbourne and Canberra median house prices end May lower than they were at the end of 2025

Home prices in Australia’s capital cities have begun to fall, with experts predicting the decline could last at least a year and wipe as much as 10% from values.

The median capital city home price fell in May, the first decline since January 2025, as high interest rates and inflation stretched buyer budgets, Cotality reported on Monday. Auction success hit a new low for the year.

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Renters could save $20bn on bills in a decade from rooftop solar and appliance upgrades – if landlords act

Owners’ lack of motivation due to ‘split incentive’ is main reason rental properties are missing out on energy upgrades, research finds

Renters make up nearly a third of Australian households, yet many are missing out on energy upgrades – such as insulation, appliances and rooftop solar – that could slash their power bills and improve home comfort.

The problem, according to the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis (IEEFA), is landlords’ lack of motivation.

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MPs urged to ignore fearmongering and pass Labor’s ‘long overdue’ negative gearing and CGT changes

Exclusive: Any attempt to use the budget measures as an excuse to raise rent is opportunistic profiteering, housing advocates say

Australia’s peak community and housing groups have urged federal parliament to quickly pass Labor’s changes to negative gearing and capital gains tax, saying the reforms would improve fairness for renters and young homebuyers.

The government may introduce its negative gearing and CGT changes into parliament as soon as the coming sitting fortnight, with hopes of passing the legislation soon after with the support of the Greens.

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Has Labor’s tax reform killed ‘rent-vesting’ for young Australians seeking a foothold in the housing market?

Changes to capital gains tax and negative gearing will make the strategy of renting in a preferred area while buying a cheaper property elsewhere less attractive, experts say

Rent-vesting – a popular strategy used by young Australians to save for their first home – could be killed off by Labor’s tax changes on investment properties, experts warn.

Renters have used the strategy to keep living in their preferred area while buying a cheaper property elsewhere, hoping it will rise in price so they can sell and put the profits towards their first home.

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Federal budget 2026 winners and losers: rich families, overseas travellers and illegal tobacco – summary

Taxpayers and first home buyers are the winners in Labor’s 2026 budget, while rich families could be among the losers. Find out who is better off and who is worse off in Chalmers’ budget

Being a winner or a loser from the federal budget can be the difference between hundreds of dollars – or tightening your belt even further.

Tuesday’s federal budget comes at a strange time. Donald Trump is waging a war on Iran that is impacting fuel supplies globally, including Australia. Inflation is still causing havoc on household budgets. Government programs are costing more than ever.

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Horrified Wagga residents call for proper sanitation at homeless camp where baby was found dead

Tent where twins were born up to a 15-minute walk away from nearest public toilets or running water

The tent where a newborn baby was found dead at Wagga beach at the weekend was part of a homeless encampment up to a 15-minute walk away from the nearest public toilets or running water, with residents in a nearby apartment block saying conditions were “worse than a Syrian war camp”.

The tragedy has prompted fury in the community, with residents of Wagga Wagga calling on authorities to take urgent action to make the encampments safe and sanitary.

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Australia’s property investor borrowing rises at fastest rate in a decade – despite interest rate rises

Owner-occupier mortgage growth slowed under growing costs while investor loans grew by $42bn in the year to March, a 9.6% increase

Property investor borrowing rose at its fastest rate in a decade in March, according to the Reserve Bank, despite higher interest rates and speculation about property tax changes.

Owner-occupier loan growth slowed under the weight of growing mortgage costs but investor lending is continuing its record surge.

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Starmer and Badenoch clash over welfare and defence spending at PMQs – UK politics live

PM took questions from leader of the opposition and other MPs in final PMQs before recess

Here is the running order for PMQs.

Nigel Farage was given £5m by the crypto billionaire Christopher Harborne shortly before announcing he would stand in the 2024 British general election, Anna Isaac reports.

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Indigenous woman dies weeks after giving birth and being evicted from public housing: ‘She was failed completely’

Noongar woman Mary Ann Miller died of sepsis while homeless to avoid an allegedly abusive ex-partner

The family of an Aboriginal mother of seven who died just weeks after giving birth say the Western Australian government knew she was experiencing domestic violence and fearing for her safety weeks before her death.

Mary Ann Miller died of sepsis in Fiona Stanley hospital on 28 March, two weeks after giving birth to her son and after she was allegedly assaulted and had her nose broken by her former partner. Guardian Australia is not suggesting the alleged assault contributed to her death.

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‘This has to be a wake-up call’: NSW attorney general urged to order inquest into death of Sydney’s ‘birdman’

Alex Greenwich says inquest crucial to understand what failures led to Bikram Lama’s death and avoid similar deaths

The New South Wales attorney-general, Michael Daley, has been urged to order an inquest into the death of Nepali rough sleeper Bikram Lama in Hyde Park.

The death of Lama – who was also known as “the birdman” for his love of the area’s pigeons – has prompted widespread calls for change, after Guardian Australia revealed last week that the young migrant’s body lay unnoticed for up to a week in bushes near a busy thoroughfare into St James station.

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Starmer implies he didn’t tell Trump he was ‘fed up’ about his impact on rising UK energy bills – as it happened

Prime minister says conversation with US president on Thursday night focused on need for ‘practical plan’ to open strait of Hormuz

Tony Blair, the former Labour prime minister, has joined those saying the government should allow drilling for oil and gas in the Rosebank and Jackdaw fields in the North Sea.

Both applications were approved by the last Conservative government, but then overturned by a court ruling. Ed Miliband, the energy secretary, has to make a decision about the revised applications operating in a quasi-judicial capacity, which means he has to follow due process and can’t take the decision purely on political ground.

The current debate [on energy policy] is deadlocked between two incomplete responses. The government argues the answer is to accelerate Clean Power 2030, focusing on decarbonising the electricity system as quickly as possible. The opposition argues that the answer is to expand domestic oil and gas production. Both positions contain elements of truth, but neither addresses the core strategic problem: outside the power sector the UK economy remains overwhelmingly dependent on fossil fuels, and electricity is still too expensive to support mass electrification.

The UK is caught in a self-reinforcing high-cost, low-electrification trap. High electricity costs suppress demand, slowing the uptake of electric vehicles, heat pumps and industrial electrification. Weak demand growth, in turn, means that the fixed costs of the system – from networks to long-term contracts – are spread across a smaller base, keeping prices high. The result is a system that is too expensive to electrify and therefore remains dependent on fossil fuels and exposed to global shocks …

The first of these vital measures will ban anyone from possessing or publishing harmful pornography that shows incest between family members, and sex between step or foster relations where one person is pretending to be under 18.

A further amendment will criminalise the publication and possession of pornography where an adult is roleplaying as a child.

This government is uncompromising in our mission to protect women and girls online, and we have taken action to stop tech firms from publishing this abusive content.

In February, we told platforms that they must remove reported non-consensual intimate images within 48 hours.

I greatly welcome the government’s plans to fully address harmful pornographic content such as incest, step-incest and the mimicking of child sexual abuse. This content that is freely and widely available online is deeply harmful, normalising child sexual abuse and abusive relationships within families …

Today the government has answered our calls for change, and I am delighted that once again the UK is leading the way on regulating this high harm industry.

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Reform promises huge cuts to benefits but would keep pensions triple lock – UK politics live

Reform UK would impose ‘biggest cuts to benefits bill ever seen in history of this country’ if they came to power, says Farage

Q: Do you agree with the Tories about wanting more oil and gas drilling from the North Sea?

Davey says Kemi Badenoch claims she can get an extra £2.5bn in tax revenue by allowing more exploration in the North Sea. He says she is “just lying”. He says everyone knows that that is not realistic.

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Want to boost the UK’s birthrate? Fix the housing crisis, research suggests

Policymakers should address financial barriers that hinder young people from starting families, says thinktank

Politicians hoping to persuade young people in the UK to have more children should prioritise tackling housing affordability, according to research by the Resolution Foundation thinktank.

There has been growing concern in recent years about Britain’s declining birthrate, given the long-term fiscal pressures of supporting an ageing population.

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NSW to crack down on property underquoting, forcing sellers to publish price guides on all listings

Underquoting and ‘dummy bidding’ will attract fines of $110,000 in bid to create a ‘fair property market’

The New South Wales government will introduce new laws this week to force property sellers to publish a price guide on all advertising, and impose a fivefold increase to fines for underquoting real estate agents.

The government says the draft laws, first flagged last year, are aimed at cracking down on agents providing misleading price estimates on property listings, a practice often used to inflate interest.

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Homeless people camping in Queensland park ‘not treated as humans’ during council evictions, court finds

Moreton Bay council’s clearing of tent city breached human rights, supreme court rules

Homeless people living in tents in a park were “not treated as humans” while being evicted by a Queensland council, with the supreme court ruling it an unlawful breach of human rights.

A group of residents who had been living in a park off Goodfellows Road, Kallangur, challenged eviction notices issued against them by the City of Moreton Bay last year.

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Most senior council officers in England say building work hit by delays

Funding uncertainty is main concern, despite Labour’s pledge to revitalise construction, survey shows

Almost two-thirds of senior council officers have said they are seeing construction projects delayed, despite the key role of local authorities in creating the wave of new housing and infrastructure promised by Labour.

Before Rachel Reeves’s spring forecast on Tuesday, a survey of senior council officers showed that 40% do not think the local authority they work for is well placed to follow through on its construction plans.

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Desperate first home buyers are fuelling price ‘up-crash’ at lower end of market, experts say

Biggest house price increases in February come in smaller capital cities as buyers undeterred by interest rate hikes

Hot competition for cheaper Australian homes has powered a relentless “up-crash” in prices despite rising interest rates, economists warn.

Desperate first home buyers have bid up the price of affordable properties as they face off against investors, who have borrowed big despite government warnings they could lose tax discounts and deductions.

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