Scott Ludlam (WA, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

Do not be so sure of that, Senator Cameron, because that smug attitude is what is costing you votes. Now that it is at least out in the open, I do want to acknowledge that the Labor Party has at least bitten the bullet—there is a negative gearing policy out there; there is a capital gains tax policy out there—which is more than we can say for the government. They are screaming about the loss of revenue and yet they are not interested in actually taking it on where it is available.

In the middle of last year, we had the Parliamentary Budget Office model what negative gearing concessions to wealthy property investors actually cost the economy. It is—in combination with capital gains tax exemptions, which is the sixth largest tax expenditure in our economy—$22 billion over the forward estimates. That is an incredible transfer of wealth; that is a subsidy to property investors.

I have been kind of amused to see the Property Council, one of the few voices left in the debate still hanging on to the idea that this intervention in the housing market is in the public interest, saying, 'It's all people on $80,000 a year or less.' It is remarkable. Yes, you can do that. When you have negatively geared a whole heap of your income out of existence so that it is invisible to the Australian Tax Office, you can actually get your taxable income down below $80,000 a year—you can get it to zero.

The Property Council does not mention that in their press release: all these people who negatively gear rental properties who have no income at all. What a remarkable miracle! Are these homeless people who are negatively gearing? No, it is not. It is people who have managed to take their taxable income down below these thresholds, and then the Property Council can go on in their press release about how it is doctors, teachers, plumbers and presumably homeless people who are all negatively gearing their seven investment properties. That is how ridiculous the debate has gotten. It is costing the economy $22 billion over the forward estimates. The debate should have been over when Malcolm Turnbull stood up the other day—