Scott Morrison and Bill Shorten make last-ditch bide to win over voters, targeting first-home buyers

With the final countdown for the election underway, both major parties are engaging in last-ditch bids to woo undecided voters. 

This Saturday’s poll is shaping up as a battle between young and old, with the Opposition taking aim at wealthy baby boomer property investors and promising more help for university students.

First-home buyers will be getting help from taxpayers to save up for a mortgage deposit regardless of who wins the election.

On most housing policies, however, the major parties are divided with Labor vowing to scrap negative gearing tax breaks for existing properties from January should it win the election on May 18.

It is also boldly declaring it will strip share-owing retirees from receiving franking credits, or tax refunds if they don’t pay income tax.

With the final countdown for the election underway, both major parties are engaging in last-ditch bids to woo undecided voters (pictured is Prime Minister Scott Morrison in Melbourne launching the Liberal Party’s campaign)

This Saturday's poll is shaping up as a battle between young and old, with the Opposition taking aim at wealthy baby boomer property investors and promising more help for university students (pictured is Labor leader Bill Shorten handing out in Sydney's inner-west with Reid candidate Sam Crosby)

This Saturday’s poll is shaping up as a battle between young and old, with the Opposition taking aim at wealthy baby boomer property investors and promising more help for university students (pictured is Labor leader Bill Shorten handing out in Sydney’s inner-west with Reid candidate Sam Crosby)

With just four days until schools and community halls open their front gates to voters, the Coalition and Labor are ramping up their campaigns in a bid to win over young home buyers, parents and immigrants.

The race has tightened during the past four weeks, with Labor only marginally ahead 51 to 49 per cent after preferences in the latest Newspoll survey.

With 20 government and Opposition electorates hanging on margins of less than 2.5 per cent, key seats could go either way perhaps depending on which policies help voters in marginal constituencies.  

Daily Mail Australia examines the key policy differences to help you decide who to vote for. 

Just days before the election, the Prime Minister responded to Labor's negative gearing policy by by announcing a re-elected Coalition government would set up a $500million First Home Loan Deposit Scheme

Just days before the election, the Prime Minister responded to Labor’s negative gearing policy by by announcing a re-elected Coalition government would set up a $500million First Home Loan Deposit Scheme

First-home buyers  

Scott Morrison made a play for young first-home buyers on Sunday as he launched the Liberal Party’s campaign in Melbourne.  

Labor has, since 2016, targeted young voters, with its plan to crack down on negative gearing for investor landlords.

Just days before the election, the Prime Minister responded in kind by announcing a re-elected Coalition government would set up a $500million First Home Loan Deposit Scheme.

Under this plan, taxpayers would stump up the cost of a home loan deposit with property first-timers only needing to put in five per cent to get a mortgage instead of the usual 20 per cent.

It will be available for single people earning under $125,000 and couples earning a combined salary under $200,000.

Within hours, Labor vowed to match the policy. 

The Liberal Party launch was held in the Victorian capital where property prices in the city’s inner-east have slumped by 15.4 per cent during the past year making it Australia’s worst-performing property market, CoreLogic data showed.

This is also where the Liberal Party faces losing the marginal seats of Chisholm and Deakin, along with La Trobe farther east where house prices have dived by 12.4 per cent.

First-home buyers will be getting help from the taxpayers to save up for a mortgage deposit regardless of who wins the election (stock image)

First-home buyers will be getting help from the taxpayers to save up for a mortgage deposit regardless of who wins the election (stock image) 

Should Labor win the election, negative gearing will be scrapped for existing properties from January 1, 2020 but not brand new homes like the one pictured at Oran Park in Sydney's south-west

Should Labor win the election, negative gearing will be scrapped for existing properties from January 1, 2020 but not brand new homes like the one pictured at Oran Park in Sydney’s south-west

Property investors  

Should Labor win the election, negative gearing will be scrapped for existing properties from January 1, 2020.

Opposition Leader Bill Shorten argued this would stop the wealthy ‘who may be investing in their sixth or seventh property’ from receiving a ‘taxpayer-funded subsidy’.

‘That’s simply not fair,’ he told the ABC’s Q&A program on Monday last week.

Labor is also vowing to halve the capital gains tax discount, from 50 per cent to 25 per cent, for those who sell their property after holding it for more than a year. 

Opposition costings, released on Friday, estimated its plans to limit negative gearing to brand-new properties and changes to capital gains tax would save taxpayers $32.5billion during the next decade. 

Critics of Labor’s negative gearing policy point out that rents skyrocketed by 31.4 per cent in Sydney and by 33 per cent in Perth during the mid-1980s when a Labor government led by Bob Hawke scrapped negative gearing.

The tax concession was reintroduced negative gearing in 1987, following an outcry from the property industry.

Retirees who own shares but don't pay income tax are firmly in Labor's sights (stock image)

Retirees who own shares but don’t pay income tax are firmly in Labor’s sights (stock image)

Rich retirees 

Retirees who own shares but don’t pay income tax are firmly in Labor’s sights.

Under the existing dividend imputations system, shareholders who receive dividends are given a tax refund, also known as franking credits.

This is so they aren’t effectively doubled-tax, since a listed company has also already paid corporate tax.

Labor wants to undo this generous tax credits system, which John Howard’s Coalition government introduced in 2001, extending a system a Labor government set up in 1987.

The Opposition estimates this will save $58.2billion over the next decade, and sparing taxpayers $4.4billion in 2020-21.

The government has dubbed this ‘Labor’s Retiree Tax’ and has been campaigning strongly against Labor’s plan.

Mr Shorten has hit back, describing the Liberal Party as a ‘pack of liars’. 

‘Now, there’s nothing illegal or immoral about this gift – it’s very nice,’ he told Q&A.

‘It is not a new tax to take away a subsidy going to someone.’

Labor is also targeting parents, vowing to spend $15.9billion over the next decade subisidising childcare, which will see families earning less than $69,000 a year have all their daycare bills paid

Labor is also targeting parents, vowing to spend $15.9billion over the next decade subisidising childcare, which will see families earning less than $69,000 a year have all their daycare bills paid

Parents

Labor is also targeting parents, vowing to spend $15.9billion over the next decade subisidising childcare.

Under existing arrangements, parents can claim half of their out-of-pocket childcare expenses, up to $7,613 per child every year.  

But under Labor, families on a household income of to $174,000 will be entitled to receive a rebate of up to $2,100 extra every year for each child. 

Should it win the election, Labor would set aside $4billion over three years to help 887,000 families reduce their childcare costs.

For households earning less than $69,000 a year, they will get all their childcare covered by the taxpayer, saving them from having to pay a typical $145 a day bill.

Working parents earning $69,000 to $100,000 will have to pay $21 a day for childcare, compared with $37 under the Coalition.

The Liberal Party argued its means-tested child care subsidy had already made childcare more ‘accessible and affordable’ for nearly one million families, leaving a typical family about $1,300 a year better off since it began in July 2018.

The government argued its changes had reduced childcare household out-of-pocket costs by more than 10 per cent. 

When it came to childcare, Labor wasn’t confining itself to reducing family expenses.

It is also vowing to spend $9.9billion over the next decade topping up the salaries of childcare workers, provided they work in Commonwealth-funded centres.

Then there is another $8.6billion over the next decade to give every three-year-old child subsidised access to kindergarten for at least 15 hours a week.

In a play for the immigrant vote, Labor has promised to remove the 15,000 cap on visa places and allow families to sponsor both sets of parents (pictured is Sydney's Pitt Street in the city)

In a play for the immigrant vote, Labor has promised to remove the 15,000 cap on visa places and allow families to sponsor both sets of parents (pictured is Sydney’s Pitt Street in the city)

Immigrants

In a play for the immigrant vote, Labor has promised to remove the 15,000 cap on visa places and allow families to sponsor both sets of parents.

Shortly before Anzac Day, the Opposition also announced it would slash the fee for the newly introduced temporary sponsored parent visa by 75 per cent.

This would take the cost of a five-year visa down to $2,500, down from $10,000 now.

The cost of a three-year visa would fall to $1,250 from $5,000.

‘Labor’s fairer Long Stay Parent visa will allow parents and in-laws to reunite with their families and let all grandparents spend quality time with their grandkids,’ the party said.

Immigration Minister David Coleman, whose own Sydney electorate of Banks has a high Chinese population, said Labor’s policy would be open to abuse. 

‘Under Labor’s new visa, there is absolutely no limit to the number of people who can enter the country for up to 10 years,’ he said.

‘This is no way to run a sensible immigration program, or population policy.’

If elected, it has promised to dedicate $10billion over the next decade for universities and TAFE (pictured is the University of New South Wales in the Sydney suburb of Kensington)

If elected, it has promised to dedicate $10billion over the next decade for universities and TAFE (pictured is the University of New South Wales in the Sydney suburb of Kensington)

Students

Labor is also making a big-spending play for the student vote, with policies catering for Australians from the schoolyard to the university and TAFE campus.

If elected, it has promised to dedicate $10billion over the next decade for universities and TAFE.

This is part of a broader plan to uncap student places, giving an extra 200,000 Australians the chance to go obtain a degree.

Labor is promising to spend $16.2billion on schools over the next decade to fund 13,000 teachers and 23,000 teacher assistants.

When it comes to retraining older workers, a Labor government would spend $15.2 billion in tax concessions to encourage businesses to take on older and younger Australians.

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