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Day: August 24, 2025
There will be expanded access to 5% deposits for first home buyers from 1 October. Follow today’s news live
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Clare O’Neil, the housing minister, is doing the media rounds this morning – touching down at ABC News Breakfast, to promote the 5% deposit scheme.
But affordability is also to supply – another issue the government has to deal with.
We committed to roll out 5% deposits to every single first home buyer in the country, we would do that on 1 January, but we can help people faster than that, so we’re bringing it forward to 1 October. This will help tens of thousands of more young people in the market every year.
What we’ve done on the construction code is say safety defects or issues that will cost consumers will be fixed. We’re freezing the code just for non-essential changes. If we find a safety problem in our building approach, we would not hesitate to fix that.
Firefighters battle blazes amid dry, hot weather as fires in Napa county and Deschutes and Jefferson counties spread
Wildfires in California wine country and central Oregon grew overnight, prompting hundreds of evacuations as firefighters worked on Sunday to try to contain the blazes amid dry, hot weather.
The Pickett Fire in Napa county had grown to more than 10 sq miles (26 sq km) and was 11% contained as of early Sunday, according to the California Department of Forestry & Fire Protection.