The self-harm goes well beyond technicalities of housing policy and home ownership. At school and university, the under-30s have been brainwashed to think UN open-borders net-zero good, and any opposition to those precepts is racist. Our "conservative" side of politics is asleep at the wheel - the current educational pushback in the US is unimaginable here.

Young people love the idea of rental-housing advocacies, which rail at the "injustices" of rental distress and homelessness. But anyone linking that to the 1.3m immigration over 2022-25 must be "racist". Under-30s welcome their poor employment and housing prospects wholeheartedly. They should be rioting in the streets.

So let me get this straight - a policy that helped create the housing crisis is now supposedly vital to preventing it from getting worse?

Right.

That's the central contradiction in this argument. Negative gearing has fuelled speculative demand, inflated prices, and helped turn housing into an asset class rather than a social good. It’s a key reason first-home buyers are competing not with each other, but with leveraged investors claiming tax losses on properties they never intended to rent affordably.

And now, when reform is finally on the table - not even abolition, just moderation - we’re told we can’t touch it, or else a system that’s already completely shot might fall over? That’s not an argument for negative gearing - that’s an admission the market is being propped up by distortion.

If your system relies on ongoing tax concessions to remain “stable,” it’s not stable - it’s dependent. And continuing down that path doesn’t prevent collapse; it just delays the inevitable while deepening the crisis for everyone already locked out.

"But, but, Keating…"

Keating Schmeating.

What happened for two years in the mid-1980s under completely different economic conditions isn't a trump card for eternity.

Even if you believe that moment was a mistake, using it as a reason to preserve the policy forever is like refusing to fix a leaky pipe because the last plumber used the wrong wrench. Conditions have changed dramatically and investor activity is now turbocharged.

If negative gearing is now so baked into the system that removing it would cause a shock, that’s not an argument for keeping it. That’s an indictment of how far we’ve let housing drift from its actual purpose - shelter - into a playground for leveraged speculation.

The solution to a fire isn’t more accelerant.

Good one John Daysh. There are huge injustices in the current housing status quo; and it’s the whole view of the status quo which offers a huge slice of the pie to the wealthy at the expense of everyone else in the mix of desperation that need the social good of affordable shelter.

Rent controls are overall ineffective in solving the rental crises, which is an offset of the affordable housing crisis; suggesting that option in time of voting, is a furphy confined to the Greens as a vote catcher.

Below link suggests a housing crisis is unsolvable if left to Government controls:
http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/20514530.2019.1596455

Overpopulation from unrealistic and irresponsible immigration levels, is the main driver, but it’s not alone as a cause.
There should be no (nil) Social housing offered to immigrants; it’s a root cause of public housing scarcity, and a main contributor to homelessness.

When will so many people in Australia comprehend that all the problems faced by this society are solely & purely of Labor's making withe he help of all other Woke Leftist clubs ?
Give the Woke the flick & some normalcy interspersed with some common sense will re-emerge !

Take all churches and convert them to accommodation for homeless and vulnerable people in need of housing. Me thinks someone is worried that the Greens are going to retain their 3 Brisbane seats, based on their renters friendly policies.

Bonger 1405

You really mean to say though, the Greens will plunder the fringe dwellers for their vote on the strength of a promise.
How very magnanimous of them.

>Why would a party whose voters are younger and disproportionately likely to rent propose policies that could see rents increase on average by another $83 per week, as well as seeing as many as 450,000 homes disappearing from the rental market?

Becase the stupidity of the orthodoxy has broght us a world of greed and consumption, that has misidentified housing as an ivestment instead of homes. Those that aren't as greedy and sociopathetic are then identified as leaners and pilloried.

They vote Green, for the same reaon I do. Policy based on evidence and fact when the orthdoxy has us on the brink, doing thier all to make it worse. Eg housibg policy like Austria for example

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2024/jan/10/the-social-housing-secret-how-vienna-became-the-worlds-most-livable-city

Nuremberg Dan,

I was being somewhat flippant with my "churches" comment, maybe it went over your head. I do believe we need much more social affordable housing, which isn't being provided at the moment. The Greens policy on negative gearing and capital gains tax should also be taken seriously.

"Independent analysis shows that Greens proposed changes to NG and CGT would allow more than 850,000 people to live in a home they own - allowing many of the 31% of households who rent to move into home ownership. Independent data also shows that renter households would have paid an average of $6,318 less if a rent freeze had been implemented in August 2022, when the Greens first called for it. Nationally, this is an extra $13 billion taken by property investors from the third of the country who rents."

A smart conservative leader, not a pillock like dutton, would see the value in a comprehensive public housing policy. Like Menzies for instance. But then their developer mates wouldnt be able to gouge Australians by restricting supply and we cant have that can we.

Must be hard being a lieberal. Deciding if its more important to keep the backhanders coming or win the election.