The $5000 New Home Grant was introduced in 2012, when the NSW housing sector was close to an all-time low.

In distinction to our First Home Owner Grant, the sole purpose of the New Home Grant is to boost housing supply and, by doing so, put downward pressure on prices and rents.

The availability of a new home incentive to foreign purchasers is nothing new.

NSW Labor’s equivalent of the New Home Grant, the Home Builder Bonus, introduced in 2010, was similarly available to foreign purchasers.

Similar programs exist across the other states.

Contrary to media reports this morning, the First Home Owner Grant is available only to Australian residents.

Also contrary to those reports, the First Home Owner Grant is worth $15,000, not $5000.

Total support for first home buyers is up to about $35,000.

The positive turnaround we are seeing in the state’s critical housing sector suggests the NSW Government’s policies of targeting incentives towards new housing and expediting the release of new housing lots are working.

In dollar terms, support for first home buyers in the first half of the current financial year was more than double the support provided via the New Home Grant.

We are conscious of the pressure on first home buyers that foreign investors could be applying, and accordingly we are constantly looking at all options to ensure that our first home buyers are given every support to own their own home.

Any policy action we take must not jeopardise the recovery in the housing sector that is currently underway.