PM reverses gear over negative gearing comments

Looks like Anthony Albanese opened up a can of worms on negative gearing that he’s finding hard to close.

Following reports in Nine Media that the Federal Government had commissioned Treasury to model some changes to investment housing tax concessions, the Prime Minister didn’t deny it when asked about it.

Instead, on Wednesday morning (25 September), the PM responded to queries about the possibility of winding back negative gearing concessions with weasel words like: “Treasury, I’m sure, like other departments, do a range of proposals, policy ideas.”

He added: “I want a public service that is full of ideas.”

And also: “I’m sure the public service is looking at policy ideas. That’s because we value them. But we have our housing policy. It’s out there for all to see.”

He didn’t outright deny the thought and he was expecting to be asked about it.

Leaving aside the issue of who informed Nine in the first place about the government’s pondering on the subject, it’s obvious the PM was testing the waters.

After all, Labor under Bill Shorten’s leadership had taken a ‘wind back negative gearing’ policy to the 2016 and 2019 federal elections.

It lost those elections, but times have changed.

Not enough, it quickly became apparent this week, to get reelected with that dead policy.

By Wednesday afternoon, Albanese was reverse gearing on negative gearing – not that he would admit to have been pedalling forward on the issue to begin with.

He reckons he hadn’t spoken to anyone about tweaking negative gearing concessions.

“What we’re doing is exactly what we said we would do, which is our Homes for Australia Plan. We have legislation,” he said in one media interview.

“My concern with proposed changes to negative gearing is that it won’t assist supply. And indeed, the work that the Property Council have done is that it would dampen supply. And I don’t want to do anything that impacts the supply of housing.

“That’s the key. We don’t have enough. That’s why we should have the Senate pass the Build to Rent scheme that’s about private rentals. That’s why they should pass our Help to Buy scheme, which is about increasing home ownership.

“That’s why we’re putting record funding into social housing through our Housing Australia Future Fund.”

Then came a flood of media appearances and interviews over 24 hours where the PM became increasingly clear that he had no plans to take changes to negative gearing as a policy platform to the next election.

“We have no plans to change negative gearing,” he said in one interview.

When it was pointed out to him that he said the same about not changing Stage 3 tax cuts (which he ultimately did, to the detriment of some high-income earners), he was able to segue into how that was the right thing to do.

But the wound for the government was already too deep for the issue to quietly go away.

The Opposition is having a riot of a time over the PM’s antics this week.

His obfuscation on negative gearing was too clever by half.

He opened the door to changes and the Coalition stormed right in.

From Opposition Leader Peter Dutton to shadow treasurer Angus Taylor and shadow finance minister Jane Hume.

They’re all making hay with the PM’s rhetoric this week – asking the voting public if they can believe anything Albanese says on tax, demanding to know what Labor’s real intentions are on negative gearing and just how complete that Treasury modelling is.

Add to that the fact that there are a number of Labor MPs who actually are lobbying for changes to the negative gearing rules as they stand and the PM has a real problem on his hands.

But, as mentioned, he opened up that can of worms by not definitively ruling out changes when first asked about it this week.