Federal budget 2025: Housing and SME summary

Treasurer Jim Chalmers handed down the 2025 Federal budget on Tuesday 25th March 2025. The following provides a summary of the housing and SME measures that were delivered.

Housing measures

Labor committed to lift total commitments in housing to $33 billion aimed to “help build 1.2 million new homes before the decade is out “  through measures including those aimed at making it easier to buy homes and build houses faster.

These include:

• Committing $1.5 billion through the Housing Support Program to fund projects to improve planning capability, deliver enabling infrastructure and build more social housing. With the Government also offering $3 billion in incentive payments under the New Homes Bonus, up to $4.5 billion in funding is committed to address infrastructure backlogs and deliver new housing.
• Higher-income caps and property price limits for its shared equity Help to Buy scheme in a bid to help more first home buyers enter the market. The government will set aside $6.3 billion – an $800 million increase – for the scheme.
• Providing $9.3 billion for homelessness prevention, crisis support, and social housing maintenance. That includes $400 million annually for homelessness services and $6.2 million for research and advocacy. An additional $1 billion is allocated to the National Housing Infrastructure Facility to support crisis and transitional accommodation for women and children experiencing domestic violence, as well as youth at risk of homelessness.
• Increasing maximum rates of Commonwealth Rent Assistance by 45 per cent for around 1 million households.
• Refining the Build to Rent tax concessions to increase rental housing supply, including affordable tenancies, and provide greater security for renters with stable 5-year tenancies. This is expected to support the construction of around 80,000 new rental homes over the next decade, including 8,000 affordable homes, alongside state and territory initiatives.
• Banning foreign buyers from purchasing existing homes for two years from 1 April 2025 to take pressure off the housing market.
• Rolling out the first two rounds of the $10 billion Housing Australia Future Fund, helping deliver approximately 18,000 social and affordable homes for those who need them most.
• Committing $4.9 million over four years from 2025–26 to continue the Regional Home Guarantee and Family Home Guarantee streams of the Home Guarantee Scheme. (But no mention of the future of the First Home Buyer Guarantee).
• Investing $54 million in prefabricated and modular home construction ($49.3 million to support state and territory governments to grow prefabricated and modular home construction and $4.7 million for a voluntary national certification process for off-site prefab home construction).
• Launching a $1 billion fund for crisis and transitional accommodation and investing $6.2 million over three years to support homelessness organisations.
• Doubling incentive payments so eligible apprentices get up to $10,000 if they train‑up in the housing construction sector. Employers of apprentices in priority occupations may also receive up to $5,000, with the Priority Hiring Incentive extended to 31 December 2025.

SMEs

• Take further action to support the franchising sector including the provision of $7.1 million over two years from 2025–26 to strengthen the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission’s (ACCC) enforcement of the Franchising Code of Conduct and enhancing its engagement and education activities.
• Extend unfair trading practice protections to small businesses. It will also boost funding for the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) to identify and take enforcement against “more dodgy directors for illegal phoenixing conduct”, focusing on the sectors that are more at risk like construction.
• Release a new statement of expectations for the Payment Times Reporting Regulator to support improved payment times for small businesses.
• Promote prompt 20‑day payment times for contractors and subcontractors in the construction industry for work completed for Government Business Enterprises undertaking major construction activity.
• Provide $56.7 million in grants of up to $25,000 to over 2,400 businesses for energy upgrades, including replacing inefficient appliances and improving heating systems, under the Energy Efficiency Grants for Small and Medium Sized Enterprises program.
• Support the hospitality sector and alcohol producers by pausing indexation on draught beer excise and excise equivalent customs duty rates and by increasing support available under the Excise remission scheme for manufacturers of alcoholic beverages and Wine Equalisation Tax Producer rebate.
• There is no mention of any extension of the instant asset write off.

Anthony Landahl | Managing Director Equilibria Finance

This is for general information purposes only and does not constitute advice. With all of these options there are a number of considerations outside the scope of what is covered in this article that you need to understand to ensure your personal circumstances are taken into consideration.

Equilibria Finance is a mortgage broking practice specialising in delivering residential and commercial mortgage and business and asset finance solutions to the clients of financial advice and accounting practices.