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

Senator Di Natale, you mentioned negative gearing. Might I remind you, as I reminded the chamber earlier in the week, that negative gearing arrangements are availed of not by people at the top end of town, not by the wealthy one per cent and not by the top decile of income earners but by middle-class Australians—nurses, teachers, policemen and tradesmen—because they want to invest in an asset so that they can get ahead. We say to those Australians: 'We will back you. We will back you to the hilt. We will back your enterprise. We will back your ambition. We will back your aspirations.' The Australian Labor Party on the other hand wants to introduce a policy in relation to negative gearing that would have the result of taking the value out of the principal asset of most Australians—that is, their house—and we will not have a bar of it, Senator Di Natale. We will stand by Australian homeowners. (Time expired)