Greens leader Adam Bandt has said that if Labor doesn't get enough seats on its own they would team up to form a Labor-Greens coalition who would scrap the capital gains tax discount and scrap negative gearing.
He has said those two things are the reason for housing unaffordiblity and for property prices escalating so rapidly. He didn't even comment on the rate of immigration far exceeding the rate at which we are constructing accommodation.
Discuss.
I think he'll be more emboldened by a power sharing deal this time around. Adding dental to medicare, legalising recreational cannabis through existing dispensary model, and getting rid of housing investment bubble incentives are not exactly a hard sell to the ALP base either.
@borrisz0r: It's being negged because it's not actually true. These policies aren't particularly dangerous or even terribly controversial.
The Greens policies do probably have sections where they are careless. The negative gearing and CGT policies as they relate to housing and adding dental to Medicare are not one of them. Which makes sense - your headline policies should presumably be your most thought-out and strongest.
@markathome: never thought I will see citations on OZB forum. We usually just make s***t up and reinforce by saying "It's true."
However, i will have to mark you down for not using APA 7 referencing and not having peer reviewed sources. Overall good job.
@froodh: thats apa 7 referencing.
i mean give him a break. at least he is using sources to support his arguments.
@CalmLemons: The Liberals have set us up for a trillion dollars of debt.
https://independentaustralia.net/politics/politics-display/m…
Start looking into the issues more and you'll see through these one liner Liberals lies.
@CalmLemons: +1 they call those policies thought through
Medicare is struggling, but let’s just throw dental in there, sure. Let’s make everything free.
Just make everyone who has more than me pay enough taxes to cover me having everything free.
I’m really thankful that most Australians see through rubbish greens policies.
@CalmLemons: Obviously we hurt the paper thin feelings of green supporters. Cannot handle criticism.
@justworld: I suspect Greens would focus on going after the mining companies rather than income tax, they've been very vocal about the cost of living crisis.
@justworld: Tthe Greens currently don't give a fk about individual income tax unless you are earning ridiculous amounts like 500k p/a. Their whole tax reform platform is based on making mining corporations actually pay "their fair share of tax" since a lot of them currently pay $0, and most of the others pay next to nothing.
@destiper: I don't consider $500k/year 'ridiculous' - it's about top 0.5% individual income, top 1% household income
@destiper: Watch the recent friendly jordies video where every Labour govt was slammed when they went directly after mining taxes, due to mining dumping ludicrous amounts of money on smear campaigns. To the point where Gillard's first speech as PM was to call a truce with mining and media.
Albo's current plan has an actual chance of working, where we buy our resources and use them in local infrastructure getting the tax back at the other end (constitution companies, engineering companies, employees, etc.)
@markathome: just random questions as your post is nicely built
1. how do dentists feel about being added to medicare?
2. removing a tax would avoid house price increases, wouldnt people just be greedier now it isnt taxed?
Do we have an oversupply of dentists? If not, providing Medicare subsidies would likely just increase prices by the amount of the subsidy.
They want to remove the CGT discount, not the tax itself. So without the discount, the taxable CG amount would be higher (=more tax paid)
@larndis: thanks for the reply, yes good points :) I have lived in places where dentistry was added and at least for basic care there were price caps to make it affordable for all
The ALP base has grown in wealth and stature over the decades and would rail against most greens policies seeking to impose more tax on them.
Single payer dental would save everyone money, except maybe Gina Rhinehart. Legalised cannabis would raise money. Deflating the housing investment bubble and removing incentives on existing houses would cost investors money, but they would still come out ahead as a family if their kids don't have to pay two million dollars each for a tiny house because of the bubble.
@AustriaBargain: Is that likely to increase the rental pool for families who can't and still won't be able to afford a house? Serious question.
@shutuptakemymoney101: In that scenario has (a) the supply of total dwellings increased, and/or (b) the demand for dwelling decreased such as by a reduction in population or a reduction in population growth?
If no to both, then no it will not increase the rental pool for people who still cannot afford to buy.
AustriaBargain's proposal (and most others here which blindly think axing negative gearing and CGT discount will someone fix the housing market) are actually just proposing to play musical chairs - some investors stop being investors, some renters become owners, but no change to the number of people needing housing or the number of dwellings available (either to own or rent). Even if prices came down to enable a shift of more renters to becoming owners, that will reduce the number of rental properties available in the market (while simultaneously reducing the number of renters) and so rents will not improve or worsen.
@tenpercent: If incentives for existing houses are removed, then new houses on new lots become more attractive. And the government can strategically add incentives to developing new land, incentives to build high density housing, improve public transport to accomodate that land, more bulk billing doctors, etc. And having fewer renters will decrease competition for rentals, even if there are fewer rentals. There will be fewer people competing for good located houses as many of the previous renters now own and don't want to move, they want to live in their home for decades like plenty of home owners are want to do.
@AustriaBargain: How does someone with no money afford a house even if it is a bit cheaper? Will lending laws have to be dropped to accommodate low/no income earners?
If house prices drop will everyone be able to somehow afford to service a mortgage?
What do you think would happen to the rental pool, do you think it will increase, decrease or stay the same?
@shutuptakemymoney101: If the bubble deflates then rents will be cheaper, that's how they'll save money. They will pay less rent so they will have more to save, and houses will be cheaper so they don't even need to save as much as they would before. If house prices/demand halved then a mortgage would be a lot cheaper than today's rent.
@AustriaBargain: Which bubble? There's 2. The first is the house price bubble. The second is the rent price bubble.
Removing negative gearing and the CGT discount may dampen the house price bubble marginally but it won't pop it. All that will do is briefly play musical chairs shifting some investors to no longer being investors and some renters to becoming first home owners.
It won't impact the rent price bubble though because any marginally cheaper houses bought up by first home buyers (instead of the newly disincentivised investors - note I'm making no comment about whether they should be incentivised or not) will be taking rental properties off the rental market at the same time as taking themselves out of the pool of tennants or homeless wannabe tennants. So the imbalance of number of houses available vs number of tennants and homeless wannabe tennants will be unchanged and the price of rents will go unchanged by those measures.
You spoke about other incentives earlier for developing new land and so on to increase the supply of housing, however the construction industry is already running near capacity so that's not going to have much impact, and Bandt and all the other flavours of simple minded ninnies in parliament haven't so much as thought about anything as complex as other incentives.
@tenpercent: It doesn't take that long to train new apprentice builders. We could do nothing now and three years from now be in the same situation, or disincentivise existing houses and incentivise new builds on new land and three years form now we'll have loads of workers taking up the demand for new work, six years form now they will be experienced workers, ten years from now, etc. The only reason to oppose this is if you have multiple existing houses and you want to see the bubble keep inflating and supply low so when you sell them all you make millions more.
We could do nothing now and three years from now be in the same situation,
Exactly what the plan from the ALP, the plan from the LNP, and the plan from the Greens will all deliver. Lots of musical chairs (small investors sell up, big investors buy up maybe some first home owners finally get a foot in the door).
But no new housing stock (some musical chairs of new stock in terms of public housing vs private housing, but no additional new dwellings).
No temporary reduction in demand so that supply can catch up.
No consideration to giving the 250k homeless in this country (growing by 10k per month) a chance of not having to continue to sleep rough at some time before the next next election.
or disincentivise existing houses and incentivise new builds on new land and three years form now we'll have loads of workers taking up the demand for new work, six years form now they will be experienced workers, ten years from now, etc.
I can get behind that. You should send your ideas to the Greens or ALP or LNP.
@shutuptakemymoney101: Because people blame housing affordability on anyone they see, in particular, people are pushed into the myth that by getting rid of negative gearing, the $2m house will suddenly become $500k and they can afford it.
@CalmLemons: It seems naive to think that people buying and aspiring to buy 10+ investment properties each isn't having an effect on house prices. There's not enough houses to go around for every Australian to own 10 of them each. If there's 20 million adult Australians then we'd need 200 million houses for us all to have 10 each, 220 million houses actually if we want to own a house to live in on top of the 10 investments. And who would we rent them to? We'd need to take in 200 million Indian migrants to rent them out to, and they are going to want 10 investment properties each too once they see how the scheme works…
@AustriaBargain: few have 10 investment properties. those are just the shitpost articles they write about individuals making $60k a year owning those, on the old loans pre 2008, their 10 properties, with $10 million in debt.
@tenpercent: There's a fair amount of landbanking going on this country, both untentated and via AirBnB. Australia had enough property and survived up until the late nineties without negative gearing, I suspect it will be an improvement.
@AustriaBargain: Why would single payer dental save me money? I'm already forced to pay for private health insurance which covers it - how is paying tax to cover it for everyone else going to save me money? I barely even use it - I'd rather just pay $300 a year to my dentist and save on the tax equivalent. Not seeing where the money saving is going. I guess if I was no longer subject to the private health surcharge, it might save me money, as i'd no longer need to pay for private health insurance that I don't want and barely use.
the teals and crossbenchers are not guaranteed to support this either, greens won't be the only power broker
I also find it interesting that he’s speaking on behalf of labor
tenpercent also says a lot of things.
he is not a financial expert.
Name a politician who is a financial expert.
andrew leigh
Bandt's doing his best to ensure he doesn't get into a coalition with Labor if he keeps spouting off the way he does.
Came here with the same thought.
Great to promise the impossible, when Labor would be blamed for not being able to implement.
(I'm not saying the above is impossible but generally they have no plan that can be reasonably executed in real life)
GreenLab would be great!
Elaborate.
GreenLab would be really really really great!
Why would it be great?
How would it be great?
@tenpercent: I have no idea what GreenLab is so I can't answer those questions.
Is it where they legalise Mary Jane?
Australia is too small and insignificant to be able to "stand up against trompet" with any positive outcome for Australia regardless who is in government.
And having one party or coalition in charge with no realistic competition for years is terrible for a democracy. Lack of reasonable political competition is not a good thing.
@tenpercent: For Australia's interest not at global scale, and do not underestimate yourself, and the UK and Deutschland have had long time one party and coalition respectively. Democracy sometimes needs consistency.
@tenpercent: What Australia lacks in economical power to stand up to trump it makes back with it's location. USA needs, absolutely must have, a friendly, western nation to base in this region of the world if it wants to stand up to China. Australia has the ace up it's sleeve.
Australia on its own wont make any real difference to the United States but if 6 or 7 countries did it would make a huge difference economically.
Elaborate, Greenlabogreat.
Albo's Adam
+1 for the dedication.
Hopefully they've written a bot to do all this posting.
Adam's Elbow
time for spec savers
does spec savers stop immigration in excess of accommodation construction?
To stop immi excess you have to train local doctors, engineers etc instead of importing them. I see importing already trained highly skilled professionals is much cheaper than educating locals here.
you do not like cook, cleaning
I don't have any servants cooking and cleaning for me. But if you let me know where to find them at $1 a day I'll consider it. Better yet, post it as a deal here on Ozbargain so everyone can enjoy it.
you think ex-colonised people should do these for you
No, I don't. What are you on about? Btw, most (all?) white people are from countries that have been colonised and conquered at one point or another too.
@[Deactivated]: If not me, then who? Who is getting cooks and cleaners for $1 a day? You can't even get a World Vision sponsor kid for $1 a day now!
@tenpercent: The minimum wage in Bangladesh is set to 1,500 Bangladeshi taka (BDT) or 14.62 USD a month so about 23.79 Australian Dollars or roughly 79 cents a day pay.
@2esc: But can they buy all the ingredients and get the food they cook for me to my dinner table still warm for 21 cents (so that it's only $1 a day for me)?
I doubt it. So it's probably an unobtainable deal.
@jackspratt: And it's even less misleading than tenpercent would have you believe.
The net migration figure is a hangover from COVID/visa extensions under the Liberals, we have slowed down the rate of migrants leaving, there's no spike or increase in the rate they are arriving.
Of course dog whistles aren't designed for nuanced tunes, and so we get tenpercent's disingenuous nonsense
@Crow K: There's no dog whistling.
The number of household units arriving to this country is much much higher than number of new dwelling completions, plus we already have 250k+ homeless growing by 10k per month.
So either the number of new dwelling completions needs to escalate rapidly and/or the number of new household units needs to drastically decline temporarily while the total housing stock catches up.
Axing negative gearing affects neither supply of dwellings nor demand for dwellings so all it will do is play musical chairs.
What part do you not understand?
Axing negative gearing affects neither supply of dwellings nor demand for dwellings so all it will do is play musical chairs.
What part do you not understand?
Well, let's take another pass at this and see who is having difficulty understanding adult concepts, shall we?
Axing negative gearing affects neither supply of dwellings
Okay, reducing the tax incentives for owning an investment dwelling probably wouldn't have a huge measured effect on supply..
First part of your statement gets a pass, let's move on..
nor demand for dwellings
Oh okay, here's the stupid bit. You're telling me removing the tax deduction incentives for owners of investment properties would not affect the demand for those properties.
Yeah, I figured out which of us doesn't understand it. Go and get a mirror and hold it up next to the screen for the super secret answer in the next paragraph:
U O Y
Stick to the immigration dog whistle stuff, nice simple sounds for a nice simple mindset, yeah?
Oh okay, here's the stupid bit. You're telling me removing the tax deduction incentives for owners of investment properties would not affect the demand for those properties.
Yes. Correct. The number of dwellings hasn't changed. The number of people hasn't changed. So the supply-demand imbalance is unchanged.
…Okay I see where you're confused.
You're confusing demand for buying houses (which may temporarily be reduced and may temporarily slow price growth and result in a transfer of properties from smaller to bigger property investors who achieve the same effect as NG by holding their properties under a company structure) with demand for living in houses (which will be entirely unaffected).
38k net immigrants per month
10k new homeless per month
So a third of all net migration is displacing 10k people into homelessness each and every month because we already have a deficit of housing and the construction industry can't catch up with current immigration rates.
We can't quickly speed up construction of new dwellings, but we can quickly slow immigration. So there's only one lever to pull to have a hope in hell of resolving the homelessness and rental crisis before the next next parliamentary term (i.e. before the 2028 election) and it's got nothing to do with investors or tax incentives. To not pull that lever is to sentence hundreds of thousands more Australians to homelessness.
@tenpercent: Except of course housing numbers need to consider existing dwellings as well as new ones, negative gearing is an incentive on both, and an incentive affects demand so you were wrong and we don't need another dozen mentions of the word "immigration". You were wrong.
Back to the Sunday comics with you, and don't forget to put the makeup mirror back in Mummy's handbag.
@Crow K: You're still confusing two different things:
1. demand for buying houses (which may temporarily be reduced and may temporarily slow price growth but only result in a transfer of properties from smaller to bigger property investors who can still achieve the same effect as NG by holding their properties under a company structure), and
2. demand for living in houses (which will be entirely unaffected).
Negative gearing is an incentive for 1, not for 2.
Aren't you a good person ignoring the plight of 250k already homeless and the 10k extra homeless Australians each and every month.
@tenpercent: The last paragraph's little sarcastic ad hominem is the true stupidity, really, because it's the last resort of someone who can't handle the actual argument but it's charming to see your intellectual disconnect between the act of buying houses somehow being different from the reality of home ownership.
As though it's just the buying that's the problem (which is an even dumber argument, because despite you stating otherwise above, negative gearing isn't a buying deduction, it's an ongoing investment ownership deduction).
The plight of the homeless is a last second fumble for when you were called out on the immigration dog whistle. You didn't lead off with your manifold concerns for homeless well-being. It's been immigration and "they're taking our jerbs houses" all the way along.
I feel like I've read both sides of a "IMMIGRANTS ARE TAKING OUR HOUSES" pamphlet now. Unless your argument extends beyond "wait just flip it over and read the other side again", can we take it that you don't understand any of this and we are done now?
can we take it that you don't understand any of this and we are done now?
It seems you don't understand any of this.
The first problem is we have X dwellings but more than X family units in Australia. The difference in those two numbers is the vast majority of homelessness in Australia.
And because there is a gap, people who don't own homes are going to keep bidding up rents just to ensure they too don't become homeless. That's the second problem, the rental crisis.
The third problem is that we are building new dwellings slower than we are importing new family units. So the gap between the number of dwellings and the number of family units is increasing. It's increasing at approximately 10k people per month. So the first two problems (homelessness and the rental crisis) are getting worse and worse.
And we aren't going to plug that gap by fiddling around with who owns the dwellings (although there's valid arguments to do so unrelated to fixing the housing crisis). We can only close the gap by speeding up new dwelling construction (disincentivising one specific group of property owners will not achieve that) and/or by slowing down the rate of increase in the number of new family units in the country (a relatively quick acting lever the government can pull).
@tenpercent: So many words to analyse the excess of demand over supply, and yet so little ability to appreciate negative gearing tax deductions are an incentive to investors to continue to hold and acquire said scarce housing stock.
"And we aren't going to plug that gap by fiddling around with who owns the dwellings"
At this stage I frankly can't reach you on the possibility that denying tax advantages to holders of an investment would change the return on the investment and in turn the number of investors (don't worry, the adults are still with me on this one) but it seems a bit rich to poke shots at "fiddling around with who owns the dwellings" and then the next 'thought' to come out of your dogwhistle is "yEh anD ALso nO FoRRiNS cOMiNG iN And owNiNg Our dWelLinGs".
Whoever owns the dwellings doesn't matter, as long as it's not immigrants, yeah? (Immigrants who can also apparently outbid the pureblood natural Australians already working and living here, another detail we curiously never seem to get to the bottom of in these circular little discussions).
These are shitty takes, and I won't validate them. From the sheer volume of your comment count, it's clear you're seeing approval from any direction possible, so let me give you a hint:
Uneducated people don't understand negative gearing and ignorant people are easily swayed by racist speaking points. Maybe you can try out some of your your 3pm-at-the-pub thoughts on those groups, say, in the comment section on a Sky News video?
negative gearing tax deductions are an incentive to investors to continue to hold and acquire said scarce housing stock.
Do you think negatively geared investors are occupying all their properties or leaving them vacant?
Yes negative gearing is an incentive for some investors to buy and hold properties. But that has absolutely no impact on the supply-demand imbalance of dwellings at it pertains to the homelessness crisis, nor the rental crisis.
"yEh anD ALso nO FoRRiNS cOMiNG iN And owNiNg Our dWelLinGs".
No. Your reading comprehension is lacking. It's got nothing to do with ownership of dwellings; whether that's ownership by local investors, other locals, foreign investors, or new immigrants. Again I'll refer back to this comment where I point out your confusion between demand for buying and demand for living in dwellings (which seems to persist even now).
Whoever owns the dwellings doesn't matter, as long as it's not immigrants, yeah?
No. You're just outright making things up now. It simply doesn't matter who owns the dwellings (local or foreign, been here for generations or freshly arrived - all irrelevant). There's not enough of them (dwellings) for the number of people here already… let alone enough for the 38k net migrant arrivals each and every month.
Your deliberate twisting and misrepresenting of what has been said (disinformation) shows you are just being disingenous.
Do you think negatively geared investors are occupying all their properties
Wh.. why would an investor occupy a negatively geared property? They wouldn't be able to negatively gear it if they did?
Jesus Christ, you literally know nothing about negative gearing. No wonder why we've had at least three passes at this now.
Stick to the dog whistle. You will look stupid with the racist one-answer-for-everything-and-it's-immigration dogwhistle, but you won't look out-of-your-depth stupid.
Wh.. why would an investor occupy a negatively geared property? They wouldn't be able to negatively gear it if they did?
Good. We're making some progress.
I'll try to dumb this down for you using the Socratic method…
and
@Crow K: To entertain you and just to be sure you're on the same page and actually understand one of the key terms being used in the discussion…
Negative gearing occurs when the income earned from an investment property is less than the interest repayments and other property-related expenses, such as strata levies, council and water rates.
This means the property owner is making a financial loss, as the rent does not cover the costs of owning the property.
However, negatively geared properties can still be attractive investments because the losses can be deducted from the owner's taxable income, potentially reducing their tax liability.
Please answer the following two questions:
and
I'm trying to learn from you, oh wise Crow /s
@jackspratt: A third of those net 1222 per day or 37k+ per month new arrivals are displacing 10k additional people per month into homelessness.
There's not enough dwellings in existence in Australia or being built quick enough for everyone who is already here, let alone another 37k+ per month.
Immigration and housing construction are separate matters.
Stopping immigration slows housing construction - some 25% of labour in housing construction are from immigrants. If you want to stifle housing construction stop immigration.
@cloudy: My uncle immigrated here when he was 3 months old and he works in housing construction. So he would be among that unsourced statistic 25%.
The question is what percentage of new immigrants are coming to work in housing construction, and what marginal effect are they having on new home completions vs needing accommodation themselves?
You think reducing immigration will suddenly create an excess of housing supply?
@smartazz104: No. You're confusing supply and demand.
Demand for housing will reduce if we reduce immigration.
There's already a growing housing deficit (way more people than there is accommodation to house them), so the policy of reduced or net zero immigration would need to be in place for some time while the supply of new dwellings catches up.
Adam Bandt says lots of things.