HOUSING

HOUSING POLICY: FIXING THE HOUSING AND RENTAL CRISIS

The great Australian dream of owning your own home is increasingly becoming out of reach for many South Australians as housing supply dwindles, housing demand increases and construction costs soar. Even finding an affordable rental has become extraordinarily difficult, with vacancy rates in urban and regional areas across the state sometimes falling below two per cent.

According to research published in August 2025 by the Wyatt Trust, in the past three years since the COVID-19 pandemic house prices rose 85% in Adelaide and 89% in regional areas while rents increased by 52% across the state. There has also been a significant surge in demand for homelessness services.

The causes of our national housing crisis are many and complex, however it is primarily an issue of too little supply and too high demand. One Nation’s policies will be effective in reducing demand and increasing supply, while also providing some other innovative solutions to improve affordability.

OUR POLICIES

Reducing demand by lowering immigration

Australia is experiencing the biggest population surge in the nation’s history under Labor’s record immigration. Australia is accepting about 1500 new arrivals per day, and the national population has surged to 27 million. This includes about 2.3 million foreign workers, and more than 700,000 international students. All of these people need somewhere to live, absorbing the majority of available rental properties in the country.

One Nation would reduce demand for housing and rental accommodation in Australia by substantially lowering immigration to a level that can be sustained in the long term. Our policy is to cap immigration at 130,000 for all visa categories including foreign students.

Increasing supply by banning foreign ownership

Australians cannot own residential property in a number of countries whose citizens are permitted to buy it in Australia. This is fundamentally unfair. Compounding this are the rises in mortgage rates, which has forced many South Australians to sell their home – about $8-9 million worth of this real estate is rapidly bought up every day by foreign citizens across the country.

Other countries also experiencing housing issues have acted to ban foreign ownership in recent years, including New Zealand and Canada. One Nation would increase the supply of housing to Australians and South Australians by advocating a permanent ban on foreigners owning residential property. Foreign owners would be given sufficient notice and time to put their properties on the market.

Increasing supply in regional areas

Where it’s appropriate and doesn’t unduly impact agricultural operations such as spraying, One Nation will seek to provide regional and rural landholders the ability to build an additional dwelling on their title without requiring a subdivision. This would provide additional revenue for farm businesses, or allow members of their own family to reside on the property.

Investing superannuation

Affordability is also a key factor in our national housing and rental crisis, with families needing to earn at least six figures just to service loans or save for a deposit.

One Nation will offer an option for an individual’s superannuation to be invested in their home (primary residence only) by the managing super fund. Upon a sale of the property, proceeds commensurate with the superannuation investment would be returned to the fund.

Reducing costs

Government fees, taxes, charges and duties make up to 45% the cost of purchasing or building a new home. Many of these were originally meant to be dismantled following the introduction of the Goods and Services Tax (GST). One Nation will seek to lower housing costs by reviewing all government imposts for their impact and effectiveness, with a view to reducing or eliminating them to make new homes more affordable.

With respect to ongoing housing costs and in light of insurance premiums rising, One Nation will also seek to eliminate state government stamp duty on insurance payments and introduce higher value thresholds for stamp duty concessions. At the Federal level, One Nation will seek to exempt basic building materials from GST.

Tax-free room rental and granny flats

In an effort to increase accommodation supply, One Nation would seek to allow home owners to rent rooms in their primary residence to a tenant tax free.

One Nation advocacy has already prompted the South Australian government to remove restrictions on renting ancillary dwellings – known as ‘granny flats’ – to tenants other than immediate family members.

Regulatory reform and increased land supply

One of the biggest hurdles to creating more housing supply is the bureaucratic delay involved in land releases and building approvals. One Nation will seek regulatory reform and increase land supply by:

• streamlining and simplifying land releases and building approvals;
• identifying and releasing under-utilised government-owned land for residential development; and
• collaborating with councils and amending planning laws to expedite zoning changes for residential development in appropriate areas.

Affordable low-cost housing

With the average cost of building a new home in Australia exceeding $500,000, many people seeking to enter the housing market for the first time have been effectively locked out of it. Public housing supply has been a joke in South Australia; the Rann and Weatherill Labor governments effectively sold about 40% of the state’s public housing stock between 2002 and 2018.

One Nation will seek to increase the supply of low-cost, more affordable housing by providing incentives to the private sector and establishing partnerships with community organisations to develop affordable housing for low-income families and individuals.

Stopping the rent tax

For many years, indigenous activists have been urging that Australian property owners ‘pay the rent’ to traditional owners: giving aboriginal groups or corporations money in exchange for the privilege of living in our own country. One Nation will be steadfast in opposing any move to enshrine such racially divisive nonsense into South Australian and Australian laws.

Building a South Australian workforce

One of the biggest impediments to improving housing supply is the shortage of qualified tradespeople in the state. Labor’s mass immigration program is not helping this problem, with only a tiny fraction of immigrants coming to Australia having the necessary skills and qualifications for housing construction.

One Nation has a strong record in this critical policy area. During the Turnbull and Morrison Coalition governments when our party shared the balance of power, Senator Pauline Hanson negotiated with the government to implement a scheme in which 100,000 new apprenticeship places were created, with the Federal Government subsidising apprenticeship wages to encourage more businesses to take apprentices on.

One Nation will facilitate building a South Australian workforce by:

• redirecting compulsory Construction Industry Training Board (CITB) levies to home construction businesses to fund apprentice wages;
• exploring small subsidies to encourage mature-age apprentices;
• waiving prohibitive registration costs for first and second-year apprentices;
• introducing business training as a necessary element of an apprenticeship to assist them with starting their own small business, and exploring the implications of waiving business registration costs for tradie/construction start-ups; and
• exempting apprentice wages from payroll tax.