Australian land is finite.
It underpins:
Housing security
Food production
Infrastructure
National stability
Citizenship carries long-term obligation to the country.
Freehold land ownership carries long-term control over the country.
Those two should be aligned.
From the commencement of this reform:
Only Australian citizens may acquire freehold title to Australian land.
Non-citizens may not newly purchase or otherwise obtain freehold land.
This aligns permanent political membership with permanent territorial control.
Where a non-citizen spouse inherits a primary residence after the death of a citizen partner:
Ownership may be retained where the property is their established home.
Anti-avoidance safeguards prevent misuse (e.g. short-duration marriages or large-scale land transfers).
This ensures family security during tragedy, not structural loopholes.
Non-citizens who already lawfully own and reside in a residential property:
May retain their principal residence.
May sell their existing, and purchase another reasonable principal residence.
This ensures mobility within the housing market and allows households to adjust property size as families grow, shrink, or circumstances change.
It does not function as a mechanism for expanding land accumulation.
It protects stability, family flexibility, and normal life progression while closing forward pathways for structural expansion of non-citizen land ownership.
Apartments in 20+ storey buildings may be purchased by:
Citizens
Permanent residents
However:
No more than 49% of any building (by voting rights and floor area) may be owned by non-citizens.
This ensures mixed communities and prevents full foreign control of vertical developments.
To prevent circumvention through dependent minors:
An Australian citizen must have lived in Australia for at least 18 years before acquiring freehold land.
Citizenship is not a technicality.
It represents lived connection and contribution.
Land concentration also destabilises housing.
A progressive, exponentially scaling holding rate will apply to:
Second properties
Third properties
All additional properties beyond a primary residence
There is no ownership cap.
But large-scale accumulation becomes increasingly uneconomic.
Capital is redirected toward:
Business investment
Productive enterprise
Innovation
Rather than passive land hoarding.
Australia faces:
Housing instability
Rental stress
Rising inequality
Asset concentration
In a period of structural housing shortage, land must serve habitation first.
This reform:
Aligns land ownership with citizenship
Protects family security
Prevents structural loopholes
Discourages excessive accumulation
Preserves high-density development pathways
Land is not a speculative instrument.
It is the physical foundation of the nation.
Freehold ownership carries sovereign significance.
Australian land will be held by Australians.
Growth will be structured.
Housing will be stabilised.
Sovereignty will be preserved.