George Brandis (Queensland, Liberal Party, Attorney-General) Share this | Hansard source

The only people who do not seem to be able to follow a very straightforward proposition are Labor Party shadow ministers and senators and Labor members of parliament. The fact is, as Senator Wong knows, that approximately one-third of the housing market represents investment, almost all of which is constituted by people engaging in the perfectly respectable practice of negative gearing—not people from the top end of town, by the way, but nurses and policemen and teachers; ordinary middle-class Australians who simply want to get ahead so they have taken advantage of the opportunity to acquire an asset and in doing so contribute that asset to the rental market. If you take out one-third of the market, of course existing property values will collapse. If you want to have an argument at the forthcoming election about whether the Labor Party will cut the baggage out of Australia's housing stock, bring it on. (Time expired)