The Victorian Greens have welcomed the Allan Labor Government's decision to force reserve-price disclosure before auctions, noting that the reform closely mirrors a Greens Bill first introduced in Parliament in August.
Underquoting has run rampant across Victoria for years, with countless first-home buyers spending thousands on building and pest inspections for homes that were never genuinely within the advertised range. Labor has only exacerbated the problem with its 5% deposit scheme, which has fuelled competition and driven prices even higher without doing anything to improve affordability.
The Greens say Labor is only acting now because of sustained public pressure and a damning media investigation and have urged Labor to go much further if it's serious about fixing a system stacked against first home buyers.
While Labor's proposal would require reserve prices to be published just one week before an auction, the Greens' Bill goes further by mandating that reserve prices be disclosed from the moment a property is listed, giving buyers full transparency from day one.
The Greens say that if Labor genuinely wants to make housing fairer, transparency reforms are only the first step - and what Victoria really needs is proper investment in public housing and strong rent controls to address the root causes of the crisis.
As stated by the Victorian Greens housing spokesperson, Gabrielle de Vietri:
"Labor's finally catching up. First-home buyers have been getting completely screwed for years, wasting time and spending thousands on inspections for homes they were never going to afford.
"People deserve honesty, not false hope, and Labor should go further like the Greens' Bill does by making agents disclose reserve prices from day one.
"Being told the reserve early is helpful, but it doesn't change the reality that most young people can't afford the reserve in the first place, but right now Labor's making the housing crisis worse by demolishing public housing and pushing prices up with no plan to address affordability."
