Brainfart No. 47: Why not extend the limitation on NG to the purchase of newly issued shares only?! Older shares would not receive the same treatment and young people would then be able to afford to buy them, as they would become cheaper!

Jokes aside, why should housing be treated differently to other asset classes? Labor's plan should treat all classes equally, or house-building will die (with all the economic fallout that entails) and rents will fly.

If there was a such a level playing field, individual landlording will drop off, given Shad's point above, and give way to corporations in which individuals may invest.

Luciferase, there's one very big difference: limited supply. Companies can quite easily issue more shares, but the supply of land is fixed.

And there's a second difference: when share prices rise it makes it easier for companies to fund productive activity by issuing shares. But when land prices rise it imposes a higher cost on anyone who isn't in the fortunate position of owning the land they use.

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onthebeach, though political correctness is a bad thing, lack of respect is generally much worse. Latham's attitude is more disrespectful than unPC.

And nor should PC be used as a synonym for anything you don't like. The party dropped the U due to its links with the American labor movement, and they did so before Gough Whitlam was even born!

Exposing the flaws in the government's policy position (and indeed the government's reasoning) is a necessary function of any successful opposition. But far from being style stirring, it's a practical policy that will encourage the building of new housing, slow the growth of house prices, and increase tax revenue. But because the Libs didn't think of it themselves, they resorted again to ridiculous scremongering, relying on "the fact that the tabloids would run anything as a lead to get low-cost sensationalist headlines and an audience". But if the polls are anything to go by, most of the public saw through it this time.

Regardless of whether or not negative gearing will raise or lower the cost of housing, it is obviously another loophole in the tax system whereby the government can take from the poorer sections of the community to subsidize the already, in most cases, the wealthy.

Even if it does raise the cost of housing, at present it is costing us in excess of $10Billion a year in lost tax revenue, helping us to become a less fairer society, while the rich get richer and the poor get poorer.

Negative gearing by itself would not be so onerous were it not for the extremely generous tax concessions given to capital gains. Why should someone who makes excessive profits on a capital investment pay half the tax that a farmer or labourer with the same income makes. Well, we are hardly likely to see these laws changed greatly when the majority of our politicians are negatively geared.

Adam Smith, in his "Wealth of Nations", posited that a rich country is one in which even poor people could afford housing. Bring on any change that will reduce the cost of housing.

Aidan,

With respect, the first priority should be the sustainability of the rental housing sector.

The sector is unattractive to the major institutional investors and to anyone with the nouce and professional advice to undertake a sober analysis of risks and returns.

Where else apart from farming is it seriously suggested that you have to sell your business to have any hope of a return? Like the farm, the 'investment' renter is so heavily mortgaged and has so many seriously expensive overheads, repairs and maintenance, that owners must severely compromise their own lifestyle to have any hope of remaining above water.

However, if you say there are fortunes to be made and all money for jam and freebies from government, go ahead and 'invest'. It is obviously not the choice of many and for very good reasons they would say.

You could suck the sav by renting out your home while on holidays and see how that turns out.

Shorten has no policies. He is distracting attention away from that and from his inaction on the CFMEU and other unions that run Labor. Now he is asking the electorate to let him do to the private rental sector what the federal governments of which he was part did to aboriginal housing.

So, Aidan, NG is not the culprit forcing up property prices to unaffordable levels for new entrants (wherever prices are not going down, that is)?

It's supply and demand that's the problem. NG is a pimple on that bum.

Why bother with it on property only, and not other asset classes? It's envy driven, that's why.

Baucopbob, take away negative gearing for what you suggest are the rich, and they will invest elsewhere where Ng applies. Makes perfect sense.

However, for those who cant afford property (another myth of sorts) where do you propose they are going to live because at present we have a mass undersupply, not an oversupply. So if you effect supply it stands to reason that the problem will worsen, not to mention put us back ten years.

Be careful what you wish for.