$1 million mortgage are not exactly uncommon in Sydney these...

$1 million mortgage are not exactly uncommon in Sydney these days, you don't have to be Packer rich to be going down that path.

Of course you can means test it but what's the point if we still have a supply problem. Prices will not reduce until the supply problem is sorted. Instead of applying ill thought out and implemented band aids all over the shop while not get to the root cause and fix that instead.

The trouble with any government assistance is it always distorts the market and inflates prices. First home buyers grant did this everyone just went out with a mentality that they could now afford xyz extra and spent it. Same for stamp duty concessions, no longer have to pay $20k in stamp duty that's ok I can bid that much extra at the auction/open house.

Handouts have failed time and time again to improve the housing affordability for first home buyers so why would yet another scheme fix that. Instead of leveling the playing field by subsidising and reducing the ever dwindling tax revenues why not just cut the negative gearing to existing property for everyone. You can't forever keep going down the path of handouts/subsidies, the government does not have the funds to support those policies and when no one wants to pay for it in the form of an additional tax elsewhere then the answer has to be cut negative gearing and turn it into a carried forward loss like you would a capital loss on an investment. This can be offset in the future on the sale of a property or when net rental returns become positive.