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Australia’s new government has announced the first changes to the Home Guarantee Scheme to come into effect under Labor’s leadership.
The new Minister for Housing and Homelessness, Julie Collins, has announced that from 1 July 2022, five additional lenders will join the program as participants of the scheme to offer home loans to eligible buyers.
The new lenders include Credit Union SA, Illawarra Credit Union, IMB (trading as IMB Bank), Newcastle Permanent Building Society, and Unity Bank Limited.
They join the panel of 25 existing non-major bank lenders, as well as two major banks that currently facilitate loans.
As with previous appointments to the lender panel, the five new financial institutions were named following a competitive procurement process facilitated by the National Housing Finance and Investment Corporation (NHFIC).
Ms Collins said the addition of lenders was intended to promote further competition among participating institutions and expand consumer choice.
In her announcement, Ms Collins also affirmed that the housing promises made by the Labor Party in the run-up to the federal election were already in the pipeline.
“The Home Guarantee Scheme will be expanded to 50,000 places per year to support more aspiring first homebuyers to purchase a home,” Ms Collins reiterated.
“This will come to include the new Regional First Home Support Scheme, delivering on a commitment the Albanese Labor government made before the election,” she said.
She also noted that the government was maintaining its commitment to establish the $10 billion Housing Australia Future Fund, which aims to build 30,000 social and affordable housing properties in its first five years, and the Help to Buy program targeted at lower-income Australians looking to get a foot on the property ladder.
A National Housing Supply and Affordability Council and the development of a new national housing and homelessness plan were also in the works, according to Ms Collins.
Ms Collins was sworn in as Minister for Housing and Homelessness, as well as Minister for Small Business, last week on 1 June. This is the second time she occupies the front bench position, having served as the Minister for Housing and Homelessness in the last days of Labor’s previous time in power, holding the job from 1 July 2013 until the election in September of that year.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Juliet Helmke
Based in Sydney, Juliet Helmke has a broad range of reporting and editorial experience across the areas of business, technology, entertainment and the arts. She was formerly Senior Editor at The New York Observer.
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