A measured read on the federal levers, the state ones, and a rezoning now taking shape on our own doorstep — and why the fundamentals still matter more than the polling.
Australian politics has rarely felt this unsettled. Through the first half of 2026, Pauline Hanson’s One Nation has done something no minor party has done before — it has led the major parties on the primary vote in successive national polls. By early June, Roy Morgan had the party’s primary support at 29.5 per cent, ahead of both Labor and the Coalition, with the rise sharpest in the weeks after the May federal Budget.
A caveat matters here, and I’ll make it plainly because the headlines often don’t: leading on the primary vote is not the same as winning government. Under our preferential system, Labor remains favoured to form government on a two-party-preferred basis, and Roy Morgan’s most recent estimates still put Labor ahead. What has changed is not who is likely to govern, but the gravity of the debate. When a party polling near 30 per cent builds its platform around migration, foreign ownership and housing, those subjects move to the centre of the national conversation — whether or not that party ever holds the Treasury benches.
For property owners, and particularly for owners in the Eastern Suburbs where values are high and decisions are deliberate, that shift is worth understanding properly — without alarm, and without dismissal.
Three levers, sitting in different places
One Nation’s housing position rests on three levers, each in a different part of the system: migration, foreign ownership, and tax. They are not equal in their reach — and some of what the party proposes is already partly in force under the current government, a distinction the public debate tends to blur.
The federal levers
Migration is the lever the party leans on hardest. One Nation proposes capping visas at 130,000 a year — a reduction it frames as cutting more than 570,000 people from current settings — on the argument that fewer arrivals means less competition for homes and rentals. The premise is contested. ABS data shows net overseas migration has already fallen, to around 301,000 in 2025 from a far higher post-pandemic peak, and economists are divided on how much migration drives prices at all; the Australia Institute, among others, argues the link is weaker than the politics suggests. What is not in dispute is that migration is a federal lever, set in Canberra — and that any government dependent on One Nation’s numbers in the Senate would feel pressure on it.
Foreign ownership is where the party’s position is most striking, and where the public debate has been most confused. So let me be precise. Labor has already banned foreign persons from purchasing established dwellings; that ban took effect on 1 April 2025 and, in the 2026–27 federal Budget, was extended to 30 June 2029. The headline measure — stopping overseas buyers from acquiring existing homes — is current law, not a One Nation proposal, and the party itself concedes as much, describing its policy as extending the ban to new homes as well. Where it goes further is the genuinely radical part: foreign citizens who already own homes here would be given two years to sell. After a fortnight of contradictory statements from its own members, the party clarified that permanent residents — people who live, work and pay tax here without having taken citizenship — would be exempt, and that only temporary visa holders and citizens living overseas would be required to divest. What happens to a property left unsold after two years was never satisfactorily answered. And it is worth keeping the scale in view: ATO data shows foreign owners hold roughly 40,000 of Australia’s almost 11 million dwellings — a fraction of one per cent, and a channel already largely closed at the established-home end.
Tax is the third lever, and here One Nation is more conventional than its reputation suggests. The party would retain negative gearing but cap it at two investment properties per investor — a limit that, on its own figures, would leave the roughly 94 per cent of investors who hold one or two properties untouched and bite only on larger portfolios. That sits against an already-legislated federal change: from 1 July 2027, the flat 50 per cent capital gains tax discount is to be replaced for new purchases by an indexation system with a minimum tax rate on gains, with new builds able to choose. One Nation has positioned itself squarely against Labor’s investor-tax changes. For anyone holding an established portfolio, it is the interaction of these settings — not any single one — that will matter.
The state levers — and what this week’s Budget said
This is where I’d caution against overreading the federal polling, because much of what touches a Sydney transaction is set not in Canberra but in Macquarie Street. The surcharge purchaser duty foreign buyers pay on top of standard stamp duty — now 9 per cent in New South Wales — is a state tax. So is the annual surcharge land tax on foreign-owned residential land. So is planning, zoning, and the pace at which supply is actually approved and built. One Nation has little presence in the New South Wales Parliament and none in the Minns government; at state level its influence is to shift the terms of debate, not to legislate.
To see what that means in practice, consider the figures. On a 1 million dollar purchase, a foreign buyer pays 90,000 dollars in surcharge purchaser duty — on top of the 39,412 dollars in ordinary transfer duty that any buyer would pay. At Eastern Suburbs price points the surcharge climbs steeply: on a 5 million dollar home it is 450,000 dollars, levied before a dollar of standard duty is counted. That is, in effect, a nine-per-cent surcharge on foreign capital — and a large part of why overseas buyers were already a modest force at the top of this market, well before the current federal ban on established-home purchases.
And the State Budget handed down on 23 June is a useful reality check. Treasurer Daniel Mookhey’s fourth Budget introduced no new property taxes — welcome stability — but its most telling line for owners sat in the revenue forecasts: the Government now expects to collect 8.4 billion dollars less in stamp duty and land tax than it had projected, because the market has slowed. The cause it names is not migration or foreign buyers but interest rates — the Reserve Bank has lifted them three times since the start of 2026. That is the real machinery of this market, set out in the State’s own papers: rates and supply, not the federal polling, are what move prices.
The rezoning on our doorstep: Woollahra and Edgecliff
The same Budget carried one item that will shape values around Edgecliff, Woollahra and Double Bay over the coming decade far more than any Senate crossbench. It committed 30.8 million dollars towards completing the Woollahra railway station — a project whose full construction is estimated at around 186 million dollars — and confirmed a state-led rezoning of the land around the Woollahra and Edgecliff stations to support up to 10,000 new homes. There is history in this. The Woollahra platforms were begun in the 1970s, when the Eastern Suburbs line was built, and never opened — abandoned after local residents fought the station all the way to the High Court. For half a century they have sat empty, visible from the train as it runs between Edgecliff and Bondi Junction. The enclave that once stopped the station is now the centrepiece of the State’s plan to densify the east.
The detail is worth setting out plainly, because it will be argued over for years. This is a State Significant Rezoning — it bypasses Woollahra Council’s assessment — covering roughly an 800-metre radius around the new Woollahra station and 400 metres around Edgecliff. Land now zoned for medium density would be lifted considerably; reporting on the proposal points to heights of up to 21 storeys within the rezoning area, though the final controls will be set through a public exhibition expected in the second half of 2026. The Productivity Commission has called Woollahra the most feasible local government area in the State for new housing, noting that its population has fallen 11 per cent over fifty years while Greater Sydney grew 74 per cent. Around a tenth of the new homes is earmarked as affordable. Station construction is slated to begin in 2027 and finish in 2029; the homes themselves would arrive gradually, with the build-out running to roughly 2051.
So what does it mean for an owner nearby? Less in the short term than the headlines suggest — and more, over time, than most people are pricing in. No compulsory acquisition of private homes is anticipated, so this is not a threat to existing houses. The build-out is a generational project, not a next-cycle event. But a rezoning of this scale changes the texture of a suburb: taller envelopes near the stations, more apartments, a different streetscape, and — eventually — more turnover as downsizers who have wanted to stay in the east finally find stock that suits them. For family homes in the leafier streets, well away from the towers, scarcity may even sharpen. For owners closer to the station precincts, the heritage-and-amenity fight now beginning will run for years, and it will matter. This is the kind of structural change I’d be watching street by street — because in the Eastern Suburbs, the difference of a single block may decide whether the rezoning lifts your value or tests it.
And the One Nation platform itself
Set against all that, the federal platform asks for less alarm than it attracts. The prestige end of the Eastern Suburbs has never leaned on foreign purchasers of established homes — and to the extent it ever did, that channel is already closed by the federal ban, whoever wins the next election. The genuinely new risk in One Nation’s platform is forced divestment, and that remains a long way from law: undrafted, uncosted, and — on its own members’ performance under questioning — not yet clearly understood by the people proposing it. It belongs in the category of things to watch, not things to price in.
The variables that will actually move Eastern Suburbs values over the next two years are the ones that always do — interest rates, the supply of quality stock, and the confidence of local buyers and sellers. This week’s Budget said as much, in the State’s own numbers. The political noise is loud. It is not, yet, a fundamental.
What I’d say to any client weighing a decision now is what I’d have said in any cycle before this one: don’t let the polling set your timetable. If the home is right and the moment suits your circumstances, the political cycle is a poor reason to wait — and a worse reason to rush. The owners who do well in unsettled periods are those who keep their attention on their own situation rather than the headlines.
That, in the end, is the discipline this moment asks for. Read the politics clearly. Price the fundamentals. And treat the rest as weather.
Alan Weiss
SOURCES
1. Roy Morgan, Federal Voting Intention (One Nation 29.5%; two-party-preferred to ALP), June 2026. https://www.roymorgan.com/findings/10246-federal-voting-intention-june-9-2026
2. ABS net overseas migration (301,000, 2025), via SBS News party migration policy comparison, June 2026. https://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/migration-policy-labor-coalition-greens-one-nation/7dsd8r7y9
3. Pauline Hanson’s One Nation: negative gearing retained on up to two properties; 130,000 visa cap. https://www.onenation.org.au/onenation-draws-the-line
4. One Nation clarifies foreign-ownership policy (permanent residents exempt); ATO data on ~40,000 foreign-owned dwellings, The Indian Sun, 5 June 2026. https://www.theindiansun.com.au/2026/06/05/one-nation-clarifies-housing-policy-after-confusion-over-permanent-residents/
5. Australian Taxation Office: ban on foreign purchases of established dwellings extended to 30 June 2029 (federal Budget 2026–27). https://www.ato.gov.au/about-ato/new-legislation/in-detail/international/banning-foreign-purchases-of-established-dwellings
6. Revenue NSW: surcharge purchaser duty (9%) and surcharge land tax for foreign persons. https://www.revenue.nsw.gov.au/taxes-duties-levies-royalties/foreign-buyers-and-land-owners
7. Property Council of Australia, 2026–27 NSW Budget Analysis (Treasurer Daniel Mookhey, 23 June 2026): $8.4bn property-tax writedown; three RBA rate rises; $30.8m Woollahra station. https://www.propertycouncil.com.au/submissions/2026-27-nsw-budget-analysis
8. Transport for NSW, Woollahra Station Activation, and NSW Government, Edgecliff–Woollahra state-led rezoning (ghost-station history; 800m/400m radii; ~$186m; 2027–2029; build-out to ~2051; Productivity Commission feasibility). https://www.transport.nsw.gov.au/projects/current-projects/woollahra-station-activation
This article is general market commentary current as at 24 June 2026. It is not financial, legal, taxation or political advice, and it does not account for any individual’s circumstances. Policy positions attributed to political parties reflect their publicly stated platforms and may change. Rezoning details are subject to public exhibition and final planning controls. Figures are drawn from the named primary sources above. Readers should seek their own professional advice before acting.
