Labor faces calls to back up negative gearing claims
A housing lobby has called on the Labor Party to release the modelling to support its negative gearing claims.
A housing lobby has called on the Labor Party to release the modelling to support its negative gearing claims.The Labor Party has claimed its plan to restrict negative gearing to newly constructed properties would boost housing supply and create jobs. But the Urban Development Institute of Australia (UDIA), a lobby group representing developers, has expressed scepticism over the claims, and has challenged Labor to produce to modelling to back up its assertions, the Australian Financial Review has reported.
“You can only assume that evidence to support this high-risk policy change does not exist,” UDIA national president Michael Corcoran said.
Corcoran repeated the claim often levelled at the Labor Party that the removal of negative gearing by the Keating government in the 1980s led to rising rents and a weakening economy. However, housing lobby group National Shelter’s executive officer Adrian Pisarski argued this claim was false, calling it “industry mythology”, the AFR said.
Pisarski called on Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull to release a Treasury modelling document that showed more than half of the tax benefits of negative gearing are received by the top 20% of income earners.
"We have known who benefits from negative gearing all along and we are not surprised that Treasury has included that data in briefings for ministers on negative gearing," Pisarski said.
