Seventy-six per cent of those surveyed agreed it was more difficult for a young person to buy their first home.
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Just 10 per cent disagreed, with the highest proportion, 12 per cent, among those aged 55 or more.
Three-quarters of supporters of every party believed it was tougher for young people to get into the property market, the highest proportion of 80 per cent among voters living in marginal seats.
In a challenge to both major parties, people believe governments have to spend more to deal with skyrocketing house prices.
Just 13 per cent believed the government had gone too far while 24 per cent said current policies were about right. But 45 per cent, including 50 per cent aged 55 or more, said more had to be done.
Housing Minister Clare O’Neil said young Australians on lower incomes were half as likely to own their home today than when she was born.
“This is not just a story of individual hardship, though that matters enormously. Housing is at the centre of intergenerational inequality – it tells us everything about who gets to build a good life in our country,” she said.
O’Neil said the government had developed the largest housing policy agenda since the post-war period, looking to build more homes and improve rights for renters while lifting overall home ownership rates.
This includes its election promise to set aside 100,000 homes for first time buyers and its new 5 per cent deposit program.
The Coalition’s housing spokesman, Andrew Bragg, said the government had introduced 5000 new regulations on the country while not building any new homes.
Analysis compiled by the Parliamentary Budget Library for Senator Bragg showed the government has committed $23.1 billion in spending on housing since coming to office plus another $34.4 billion in off-budget funding vehicles including the Housing Australia Future Fund.
He said for $57.5 billion in taxpayer spending, the government had built a bureaucracy but almost no new homes.
“The government brags about how much money they’ve spent on housing but they have nothing to show for it,” he said.
The independent Parliamentary Budget Office last week warned that younger generations would bear the brunt of pressures on the budget over the next decade, with wages taxed more heavily than other forms of income such as capital gains.
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It found not only would younger generations pay an increasing share of their income in tax, but they would pay a greater share of government debt that had been accrued by older generations. Gross government debt last week reached $963.9 billion and is forecast to go past $1 trillion by the end of the financial year.
Independent economist Chris Richardson on Sunday said one way to reduce the financial hit on younger Australians was to increase personal income tax thresholds by 2.5 per cent, which is the mid-point of the Reserve Bank’s inflation target band.
He said the current system, which left changes to thresholds in the hands of governments, was politically weighted against young, working people.
“Shortfalls in money collected from the failing parts of our tax system get made up over time by bracket creep – by higher taxes on workers,” he said.
“That means the existing bias in the tax system against workers and the young is on a ‘set and forget’ course to worsen over time.”
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