Joe Hockey (North Sydney, Liberal Party, Treasurer) Share this | Hansard source

For any individual it is hard in Sydney. I understand that, I know that, I speak to people at length about that and I have been saying that consistently. It is an expensive city. What is interesting is that the Labor Party want to make it harder. Why? Because the Labor Party has now indicated that they are looking at abolishing negative gearing. They have indicated quite bluntly that they want to get rid of negative gearing. The interesting thing about negative gearing is this. Of the people with a taxable income of less than $80,000 per annum, the people who have a net rental loss, that is they use negative gearing, there are 12,300 emergency services workers; teachers and childcare workers, 61,000 have negatively geared properties; nurses, midwives and aged care workers, 42,000 have negatively geared properties; 7,000 cleaners and housekeepers have negatively geared properties; 83,000 clerical staff; nearly 21,600 in hospitality trades; 1,700 hairdressers—et cetera. It goes on and on. Of the people who are using negative gearing to get into the property market in particular in the tax bracket of less than $20,000, 204,000 people have negatively geared properties.

These are the facts.

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