Foreign investors are being targeted in Opposition Leader Peter Dutton’s housing crisis answer, even as he concedes their impact is low.

If elected in 2025 a coalition government would introduce a two-year ban on foreigners buying existing homes and cut the number of foreign students.

Reinforcing the proposals from his Thursday night budget-reply speech, the opposition leader said construction sector issues meant the government would need to increase supply via existing homes.

“We want the Australians who are living in tents and in the back of cars at the moment to take up the rental accommodation, instead of international students,” he told the Today show on Friday.

“It’s not that we’re against international students, but I think we’ve got to prioritise Australians getting into housing.”

Government minister Bill Shorten called the coalition’s plan “lightweight” and noted fewer than 5000 Australian homes had been purchased by foreign investors over the past two years.

But Mr Dutton doubled down.

“The number of people who are foreign citizens who are buying houses in our country is low,” he said.

“Nonetheless it contributes to an overall shortage of housing.”

More than 100,000 homes over the next five years would be freed up through reduced migration, Mr Dutton said during his speech.

The coalition would cut Australia’s permanent migration intake of 185,000 by 25 per cent for the first two years, before raising it to 150,000 and then 160,000 in the fourth year.

It would also back energy bill rebates in the government’s budget, worth $300 for every household, but warned Labor was “treating the symptom” and not the cause of higher prices.

Mr Dutton would scrap the $13.7 billion in tax incentives for hydrogen and critical minerals, the centrepiece of Labor’s Future Made in Australia plan, claiming the projects “should stand up on their own without the need for taxpayer’s money”.

The opposition leader criticised Labor’s “‘renewables only” energy policy and said going nuclear was “right” for the nation.

But Mr Dutton did not reveal details on nuclear energy and lower taxes – two of his biggest talking points. 

Mr Dutton said older Australians and veterans would be able to earn triple the current income rate, up to $900 a fortnight, without having their pensions reduced.

He announced an instant asset write-off scheme for small businesses would rise to $30,000.

On industrial relations, Mr Dutton said the coalition would revert to a “simple definition” of a casual worker.

Following a number of violent attacks, the opposition leader said there would be a restriction on the sale and possession of knives for minors and dangerous people, with tougher bail laws for family violence.

Education Minister Jason Clare said the plan lacked detail and criticised the coalition for not revealing the locations of proposed nuclear reactors that would be built under their energy plan.

“This budget reply was just a nothing burger,” he told Sunrise.

Mr Clare said Mr Dutton “talked a big game” on immigration without providing detail on how a reduction of that scale would impact the economy.

The housing crisis also cannot be fixed by solely cutting migration, the education minister said, and the government needed to build housing.

In August, the federal and state governments committed to building 1.2 million well-located homes over five years with demand projected to grow by 871,000 by the end of this period.

But a report from the government-appointed National Housing Supply and Affordability Council has found the housing crisis would worsen and that the Commonwealth would fall short of its goal by hundreds of thousands.

This post was originally published on Michael West.