EMBARGO NOT TO BE PUBJISHD 3RO, 0DCAST OR TEL'L AST BEFORE]
7.15 PM ON THUASDAYL NOfi4BER 21ST.
BROADCAST NO. 4
BROADCAST BY ' TL Pi. IME MINISTER ' HE RT. HON.
SIR ROBERT K. NZIES, OVER ABC NATIONAL STATIONS
AT 7.15 PM 0 THURSDaY, NOVE113" R 21ST, 1963
Our housing policy has been very successful, Of all the dwellings in Australia today, no less than 36% o have been built during our term of office, i. e. since 19 But there are two special problems.
The first concerns young married people up to years of age. They save up for a deposit on a home; but they find it difficult. Yet homes are the very foundation
of tie nation. ' ell, our proposal is this. Somebody in this
age group decides to save for a home. He, or she, makes
deposits in some identifiable account at an approved institution,
e. g. a Trading Bank, a Savings Bank, a Building Society, or
whatever the institution may be. Jhen, in that account, there
shall have been deposited, over a period of at least three
years, a total of œ 750, we liill, by subsidy, make that œ lO00
Maximum subsidy for one house Z250 Rate of subsidy œ 1
for œ 600 saved; subsidy œ 200.
In the purchase of non-State houses costing up
to œ 7000 for house and land, this will be of tremendous value.
The second problem concerns those who can find
the deposit, but, not being able to borrow the whole of the
rest on first mortgage, are compelled very frequently to fill
the gap at exorbitant rates of interest. This large group
includes many who -Jant a somewhat better or different house.
Nobody wants to see a uniformity of houses carried to a
depressing extent. To meet this problem, we will establish a National
Housing Insurance Corporation, to insure the repayment of
housing loans made by approved lenders at approved and
reasonable rates of interest. This will be a flexible scheme,
designed to help the borrower according to his income. Thus,
suppose an intending home buyer or builder has a taxable income
of œ 1500 a year. He should be able to borrow, say, œ 4500 ( or
three years income) and to borrow it up to a high percentage
of valuation, up to 95% in appropriate cases.
These two plans, when they go into operation early
in the new Parliament, will greatly encourage and assist home
ownership, both for the young and younger married and for the
many thousands of others.
It has been and is our policy to create a homeowning
democracy. It may have escaped your notice that,
lorgely assisted by our own policies, the position today
is that 76% of all Australian homes are owned, or in process
of becoming owned, by the occupiers.
I doubt "+ rhether this record can be approached by
any other country in the world. As I have shown, we intend to
improve on it. Before I conclude, could I nail once again the
silly statement that the Government is slowing down. So
foolish is this story that I have only to make one more
reference to housing. The current rate of housing construction
in Australia, in the fourteenth year of our office, is 100,000 dwellings a year. This is a record. If I please the statisticians by ttaking the average population of a home
as 3M persons, ( or should I, as a grandfather of twins,
say 47) the effect is that at the present rate 350,000
persons are going into newly built homes every year!
This isas good a testimonial as I, for one,
would wish to take with me if you decided to dismiss us
on polling day.