Scott Morrison (Cook, Liberal Party, Treasurer) Share this | Hansard source

They are saying it was nine years ago. Apparently housing affordability wasn't a problem nine years ago, Mr Speaker. I can tell you, anyone who sought to buy a house in Sydney in the last 50 years has known something about housing affordability. The Labor Party have held out this measure as something of a panacea. This government took action through the regulator over several years, but particularly last year, and that saw the growth in house prices in Sydney decelerate from 17 per cent to one per cent. That is the approach we took. The approach proposed by the shadow Treasurer is now, on top of that, to bring about negative gearing's abolition, and not only that but to increase capital gains tax by 50 per cent. He wants to do that on a house price now growing in Sydney at only one per cent. How far does the shadow Treasurer want the property prices of mum and dad homes to fall in this country as a result of their reckless policies?

But it goes further. He knows that his capital gains tax policy doesn't just apply to housing. They are going to increase the capital gains tax by 50 per cent on retail shops, on factories and on share transactions. At a time like this, when superannuants are worried about the impact of global share markets, the Labor Party is out there saying, 'I want to whack up a big, fat tax on people's share earnings.'

Mr Bowen interjecting—

Now, he blinks and he blusters. All I know about this shadow Treasurer and this Leader of the Opposition is that they couldn't find an economic compass between them.

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