North Coast voters took to social media in force today to vent frustration, scepticism and anger over last night’s Federal Budget, with housing affordability and migration emerging as the dominant flashpoints.

Richmond MP Justine Elliot attempted to sell the Budget as “a BIG WIN for the North Coast”, highlighting tax cuts, housing measures and Medicare funding in a social media post this morning.

But the majority of her Facebook followers were unconvinced.

“You know what you can do with your $5 a week tax cut,” John Lafferty wrote.

Heath Thompson questioned Labor’s housing claims while linking them to migration levels.

“I love the way that $4 week is going to help save to buy a house. Especially when you keep importing voters at an alarming rate. Let’s see what that does to property prices,” he posted.

Cameron Jones attacked the Government’s proposed capital gains tax and negative gearing changes.

“You have increased all CGT taxes to minimum 30 percent and abolished negative gearing on everything except new homes! Thats called RAISING taxes!” he wrote.

Young Australians trying to save for a home deposit also featured heavily in the criticism.

“Not good for me as a young Australian when my future house deposit is in a share portfolio,” Austin Baker wrote.

“Young Australians aren’t better off under these tax reforms.”

Meanwhile, Page MP and Coalition Shadow Assistant Treasurer Kevin Hogan generated some of the strongest reaction after posting figures from the Budget papers this morning.

“Labor’s budget:

• 2 million more migrants
• $77 billion in higher taxes
• 35,000 fewer homes,” Mr Hogan wrote.

That post quickly triggered fierce debate around whether the Government’s housing policies would improve affordability or worsen rental shortages.

“Supply and demand will drive rents up, simple as that,” Russel Thompson warned, arguing investors would leave the market under the proposed changes.

He added: “Renters that can’t afford to buy…..good luck.”

Some commenters, however, backed the reforms.

“Break the promise. Our kids might get to buy a house before an investor,” Gavin Merriman wrote beneath Mr Hogan’s post.

Michael Harris defended the changes to negative gearing.

“Negative gearing has been fine tuned to make more desperately needed new houses!!” he posted.

But frustration was also directed at both major parties, with some commenters arguing neither side had presented a convincing solution to the housing crisis or cost-of-living pressures.

“If the coalition actually gave us something different then basically the same thing as the Labor party but a few tweaks there may be hope,” David Evomy wrote.

“This is why the One Nation party are increasingly getting more voters.”