Federal and state Labor have ramped up an attack over housing affordability, with shadow federal Treasurer Chris Bowen and NSW Opposition Leader Luke Foley accusing Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull and new state Premier Gladys Berejiklian of being "all talk, no action".
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"Right around the country Australians are worried about how they'll afford to buy a home, or their children and grandchildren will afford to buy a home", Mr Bowen said on Friday, renewing Labor's call for action to clamp down on investors pouring funds into the negatively geared housing market.
"Now we see Liberal backbenchers joining what has been a growing chorus calling for reform to negative gearing, knowing that [it] needs to be reined in."
Federal coalition MP's John Alexander and Andrew Hastie have called for a "contest of ideas" including possible action on negative gearing to help ease housing prices, News Corp reported on Friday.
Appearing with Mr Bowen at a joint press conference in Sydney, Mr Foley declared Labor to be united "federal and state ... around the issue of housing affordability".
"Currently the balance is tilted unfairly against the interests of those seeking to purchase a first home, and nowhere is it a greater problem than here in Sydney."
Mr Foley released figures obtained under freedom of information from the Office of State Revenue which he said showed a "rampant" Sydney investor market.
He claimed they revealed a 61 per cent jump in the number of NSW residences bought by investors over the last three years, "the majority ... likely to be in Sydney".
The average number of transactions for properties bought specifically to rent rose from 1660 a month in 2013 to 2670 a month last year.
Mr Foley said Ms Berejiklian would have to get a new planning minister because she was "at odds" with current state planning minister, Rob Stokes, who late last year appealed to Canberra for reforms to negative gearing.
"Rob Stokes belled the cat" Mr Foley said. "That was a refreshing message from [former premier Mike] Baird's planning minister."
Ms Berejiklian nominated making housing more affordable as a top priority when she ascended to the premiership on Monday but thus far has fallen in step with her Canberra colleagues' argument that astronomic house prices are largely a function of undersupply .
Mr Bowen said supply was part of the equation, but negative gearing should be confined to new housing.
"People say that negative gearing is necessary in generating new housing supply, well if thats the case, it's got a 93 per cent failure rate, because 93 per cent of negative gearing goes into existing properties," he argued.
Mr Foley said if supply was the whole answer to house prices then there would have been an effect from increased building in New South Wales. "Housing is less affordable than ever," he said.
Sydney's median house price now sits over $1 million and an international survey from think tank Demographia recently identified Sydney as the second least affordable major city housing market in the world, with Melbourne coming in at sixth least affordable.
