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House of Assembly - Fifty-Fourth Parliament, First Session (54-1)
2019-04-03 Daily Xml
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Motions

Negative Gearing

Mr DULUK (Waite) (11:30): I move:

That this house opposes Bill Shorten and Labor's plans to abolish negative gearing and increase capital gains tax by 50 per cent, which would damage Australia's housing market and destroy equity in people's homes.

This is the party that supported and endorsed Mark Latham to become prime minister of Australia. Of course, Mark Latham has just been elected as a One Nation candidate in New South Wales. When I was in New South Wales on election day in the seat where I was handing out how-to-vote cards, the Independent member was preferencing One Nation and Labor ahead of the very good Liberal candidate. Obviously, the Labor Party was happy to do deals in New South Wales in relation to One Nation. This is the party of Bill Shorten and the party the member for Light supports—

The Hon. A. Piccolo interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

Mr DULUK: —and is very happy to do so. As I said, it is only the Labor Party and the brains trust behind it that could bring in and advocate for a policy that will destroy households, increase rents and devalue the family home, punish the elderly, the housing sector, the economy, job creation, punish investors and hardworking Australians who want to invest in their own homes and in the economy and, at the same time, actually punish federal Treasury coffers as well. This is what the Labor Party is renowned for, and God help us if there should ever be a future Labor government.

Bill Shorten and Labor plan to abolish negative gearing and increase capital gains tax. What does this mean? What does it look like? Negative gearing, in a nutshell, is a common investment strategy, one that is completely transparent and has been in practice for many years. Negative gearing is an investment strategy adopted by many Australians, many mum-and-dad Australians, hardworking nurses, police officers, teachers—

An honourable member: Firies.

Mr DULUK: Firies. I bet even some members of the opposition are negative gearing investors as well, so I wonder if they declared all that conflict when they were at the national conference when this policy was passed. Negatively gearing a rental property, sir, as you may be aware yourself, is an opportunity to invest in the housing market. The housing market and the construction industry provide tens of thousands of jobs for Australians and, indeed, South Australians.

The Hon. A. Piccolo interjecting:

The SPEAKER: The member for Light has had his Weet-Bix this morning, I can tell.

Mr DULUK: The member for Light should actually support negative gearing because, as he knows, there is so much important development in his own community and his own representation—

The Hon. A. Piccolo interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

Mr DULUK: —that is benefiting from the housing industry. It would be interesting to see what effect Bill Shorten's proposed policy may have on construction jobs in his own electorate. Of course, he will have to go to his electorate to defend why there has been a downturn in the economy and the housing market because of any potential Bill Shorten Labor government. Of course, all those members opposite—

The Hon. A. Piccolo interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order, member for Light! The member for Waite has the call.

Mr DULUK: All those members opposite, as they go to vote with their red ticket on polling day, vote Labor with their union mates, GetUp!, the AEU and the CFMEU—the most misogynistic union of all unions in Australia. The CFMEU is going to call the shots for the Labor Party should there ever be a Labor Party, God forbid, elected in Australia. It is a union that loves standover tactics and loves picking on women in the workplace—some of the most derogatory things you can see. That is going to be the future of the Labor Party. That is what the member for Light is voting for at some point, come May.

All the Labor members opposite, as well as the Labor candidates and the federal Labor members, are going to have to go to the electorate and justify why their policy is going to hurt hardworking mum-and-dad Australians. That is ultimately what we are here to debate today. This side of the house knows that it is important to support mums and dads and mum-and-dad investments and, more critically, the housing market.

As I said, negative gearing is when someone buys an investment property and has offsets and deductions in relation to that rental income. Of course, another part of the Labor proposal is to remove the 50 per cent capital gains concession. These are some of the big issues. It is not just me who has great concerns with the Labor Party's approach and Bill Shorten's approach; it is also the Morgan Stanley rating agency. Morgan Stanley have come out and said that house prices will fall if this proposed policy is brought into effect and that will feed into negative consumer sentiment and flow into reduced consumer consumption.

We have obviously just seen the federal budget handed down last night. I congratulate the federal Treasurer on a very good and fair budget. For me, it is one that certainly strikes at the heart of the key Howard-Costello budgets, and it is one that looks after SMEs. The SME concessions and the instant asset write-off are so important for a lot of tradies who run their own business, such as tradies who work in the construction industry.

There are some fantastic tax cuts in the budget for low and middle-income earners across the nation, which is so important. It is fantastic that it is only a Liberal government that can deliver a surplus budget and tax cuts at the same time. Labor have not been able to do that since 1989, and they will not be able to do that if they are elected at the forthcoming election.

If you look at the underlying figures in the budget, it is interesting that consumers' confidence across Australia is down slightly at the moment. House prices are falling in many of our cities. New construction dwellings and approvals are down. Credit has been tightened. Lending institutions have tightened credit lending. There is less capital flowing into markets at the moment. All of this has a negative effect on housing, house consumption and house purchasing.

The last thing the Australian economy and the housing market need right now is something as fundamental as a change in policy that has been around since Hawke-Keating, the doyens of the Labor Party. Hawke and Keating tried to reform this back in the eighties and nineties. They knew that they should not, and they did not, to their credit.

Right now, the housing industry does not need any shock or uncertainty. Bill Shorten, the federal Leader of the Opposition, is proposing to implement his negative gearing policy by 1 January. Already that has created uncertainty in the market. Well, it is double uncertainty: the uncertainty of a Bill Shorten Labor government and, God forbid that he ever gets in, what that implementation will look like from 1 January. Of course, this bit of Labor legislation, should they actually win, has to be negotiated through the Senate. So much for consultation with industry stakeholders. There was a lot of—

The Hon. J.A.W. Gardner: Negotiating with the Greens and the Shooters.

Mr DULUK: Well, the Greens and the Shooters, and of course we know that the Greens will be preferencing the Labor Party at this coming election. As the education minister so rightly confirms, they want to bring in death duties. They want to destroy the US alliance. I would like to see what the federal Labor Party think about that. They are going to take Greens preferences to try to win the marginal seats because the Labor Party have destroyed their traditional base.

BIS Shrapnel have also come out and modelled the ALP's negative gearing policy. The report modelled limiting negative gearing and grandfathering pre-existing investment—that is what they looked at in their modelling. The report found that the policy could see rents jump by as much as 10 per cent. BIS Shrapnel, a very independent and certainly not partisan modelling agency, have modelled and said that rents will increase by 10 per cent under the Labor Party's policies. Rents will go up for uni students who are living in share housing, perhaps, on the edge of Adelaide. Rents will go up for perhaps single mums and their families living in rental accommodation in my community.

Rents will go up for older South Australians. There are so many older South Australians, as you know, sir, who rent their homes. They may have downsized from an existing family property on a larger allotment and are now in rental accommodation as they enjoy their retirement years. They are going to have a rent increase of, on average, 10 per cent. These people are on fixed incomes, and all because of some ideological partisan decision of the federal ALP to perhaps deal with some perception issues in the western suburbs of Sydney they are going to punish renters here in South Australia, which is an absolute disgrace.

Even the Grattan Institute, which is certainly no think tank of the Liberal Party or of the centre right, said that there will be 'a sting in the tail' of the property and investment sector should the ALP win office. To quote the Grattan Institute:

We think it is unfair that people can work all their lives, pay taxes, work hard to leave a nest egg for their children only to be driven out of their homes so the ALP can achieve some arbitrary number of new homeowners.

Those are not my words, but the words of the Grattan Institute. What will this actually look like for Australians? According to federal Treasury, in 2012-13 nearly 70 per cent of all people who negatively geared their property had a taxable income of less than $80,000 per year. So the mantra from federal Labor is that negatively geared properties are in the domain of the rich and wealthy in Sydney and perhaps the people living in Hartley who have many multiple investment properties. Actually, it is not: it is quite the opposite. It is suburban mums and dads who see property as a sustainable, long-term gradual investment.

I raised this many times in this debate because it is one that is of interest to me. A lot of people invest in property against the equity market, including people of multicultural backgrounds, people of Polish backgrounds, like me, and, dare I say, people of Italian ethnicity as well who have come to Australia and who choose housing as a form of investment rather than the equity market, and they should be able to.

What is interesting about federal Labor's policy is that it punishes people who have invested in property, vis-a-vis those who have invested in the equity market. So, if Labor felt that it was good enough to remove the capital gains concession on investment properties, why not remove that same capital gains concession from the equity market as well for those who invest in shares and equities and derivatives, as I know many people in the member for Kavel's electorate probably do, which is so important?

Another anomaly in this whole debate is, of course, that if you invest in investment properties via your superannuation fund you are exempt as well. It is very interesting that in the whole shake-up of Labor's policies—whether it be negative gearing or franking credits—there seems to be a bias towards Industry SuperFunds. Industry SuperFunds are not going to be affected by the franking tax changes like, perhaps, a superannuant through a Triple S scheme or a self-managed superannuation scheme, and it is the same when it comes to investing in housing. I wonder why Industry SuperFunds will not be affected? Because, of course, they are controlled by the union movement. That is how the Labor Party get their union mates on funded board positions—via Industry SuperFunds. That is what they do so well and, lo and behold, the way they create their policy platform is to exempt anything to do with the union movement.

RiskWise and WargentAdvisory also undertook some analysis on negative gearing CGT in Australia's residential property markets to June 2018, and it is suggested that the ALP's policy could lead to a reduction in new dwellings and drive down property prices. What does a 6.9 per cent reduction look like? First, it will change a borrowers LVR (loan to valuation rating) with their lender, and, of course, a reduction in property prices. There is a correlation with a reduction in consumer sentiment that goes with that and confidence in the market. It is confidence in the market that drives investment, which we so greatly need.

Other modelling by Property Investment Professionals of Australia has found that we could see a reduction in collected stamp duties over 10 years, between $10 billion and $32 billion across all jurisdictions, as there will be fewer investment properties and a lower turnover of properties being purchased and sold, which of course will have an effect on our state and federal treasuries, which then has a detrimental effect on rents.

In conclusion, Bill Shorten plans to abolish negative gearing and consumers and taxpayers will miss out. Mum-and-dad investors will be worse off if Labor continue with their current war on households and on Australians. It is important that we have a strong housing market to ensure stable prices and rent for all consumers and investors. Most importantly, voters should think twice before voting Labor at this coming federal election, as it will see their home prices plummet and rents go up.

Mr ELLIS (Narungga) (11:46): I rise to wholeheartedly support the motion from the member for Waite to oppose Bill Shorten and Labor's plan to abolish negative gearing and increase capital gains tax by 50 per cent. There is no doubt that this policy will severely impact Australia's housing market, including this state's market, and it has been predicted that as a result investment property owners may decide to give up on their investments altogether and that those considering investing in something will not, which in terms of the wider economy will have serious repercussions.

Already, investor home loans reportedly have plummeted by 18 per cent over the past 12 months to October 2018—a startling fall indeed. Lending to property investors is at its lowest since July 2013, and that has been attributed to a very slow rise in rental prices and stronger restrictions, according to the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority. Over the year to September 2018, according to ABS data, rental prices increased by just 0.6 on average—the slowest rise in 25 years.

The banking royal commission has also made lenders jittery, and it was put in November 2018 that the Master Builders' modelling showed that more restrictive policies around negative gearing and the capital gains tax discount would result in between 10,000 and 42,000 fewer new dwellings being built across Australia, which would be incredibly damaging to our construction industry. The conclusion was that, with investor demand already in retreat due to the banking royal commission, any policy changes at this time would be extremely detrimental to Australia's home building sector, a vital sector that continues to provide significant employment to a number of people across our state, and any harm done to that sector could be incredibly detrimental to our state economy.

The Real Estate Institute of Australia has also voiced similar concerns, and the Property Investors Council of Australia has described Labor's proposed negative gearing restrictions as absurd policy at a time when the national economy is showing signs of flatlining due to a number of poor indicators, including significant property price falls in Sydney and Melbourne. Just the threat of home values falling due to Bill Shorten's plans is impacting the economy, and Aussie Home Loans founder, John Symond, publicly has gone one step further, saying that Mr Shorten's negative gearing policy could tip Australia into recession.

The intent of this Labor policy is that it would give first-home buyers more opportunity to get into the housing market, putting the great Australian dream back within reach. However, the conclusion from so many across a number of different sectors is that making such a change to the tax policy at the same time that banks are tightening their lending is fraught with danger and could have a disastrous impact.

The bottom line appears to be that, if you own a property, under Labor's plan it will be worth less; if you are renting, your payments will increase. Almost 1.3 million Australians own a negatively geared investment property and more than half of those who negative gear earn less than $80,000. Those who can least afford to have less money in their pocket will be the hardest hit by this terrible policy of Bill Shorten's federal Labor team.

More than half of negative gearers, who earn less than $80,000, negatively gear so they can get ahead a bit, so they can buy a property or spend money in other areas, contributing to our economy. We all know the valuable impact of spending in our economy: more disposable income and more money going through our economy, which multiplies and has a wonderful effect. The Shorten policy will severely impact consumer spending and investment.

The Real Estate Institute South Australia is also concerned, citing that Labor's plans, if enacted, will see mum-and-dad investors not investing in property. Home owners in this state, in the metropolitan area and in regional areas, will see additional downward pressure on home prices in an already falling market. Renters will see their rents rise, builders and tradies will build fewer houses, and stamp duty revenues will significantly reduce, affecting infrastructure spend.

In 2016, highly regarded economic forecaster BIS Shrapnel modelled limited negative gearing and grandfathering pre-existing investment. Their report found that the policy could see rents rise by as much as 10 per cent, a scary thing for those who are living with limited means and struggling to pay weekly bills. The tight line they walk will be tightened even further under this plan. In support of the member for Waite's motion, I too oppose Bill Shorten's and Labor's plans to abolish negative gearing and increase capital gains tax by 50 per cent, as the evidence is clear to me that there will be damage to our housing market and a loss of equity in people's homes.

That being the case, I commend the motion to the house and congratulate the member for Waite on bringing it to the attention of this chamber. I hope that all South Australians strongly consider not voting Labor at the upcoming federal election in order to preserve their home values and limit the rise in rent costs that could be created by these disastrous policies.

Dr HARVEY (Newland) (11:52): I rise this morning to support the motion of the member for Waite. It is important that this house places on record its opposition to Bill Shorten and Labor's plans to abolish negative gearing and increase capital gains tax. It is important because nearly 90,000 South Australians stand to lose as a result of Labor's negative gearing tax grab, and there are approximately 900,000 individuals across Australia who will be hit by Labor's brutal increases in capital gains tax.

Labor's policy to abolish negative gearing will hurt those who negatively gear, most of whom are not real-life versions of Rich Uncle Pennybags, as those in Labor would have us believe. In fact, two-thirds of those who negatively gear have a taxable income of less than $80,000 a year, and they certainly are not buying up streets and streets of houses. They own one investment property. They worked hard to save and make an investment in their future and their families' future. These people are regular everyday Australians: teachers, nurses, farmers, tradies and all sorts.

Labor's tax grab will also hurt those who do not negatively gear. House prices across South Australia could fall nearly 7 per cent, construction of new houses would fall, leading to fewer jobs in the construction industry, and it does not stop there. People who negatively gear tend to charge lower rents. It does not take a genius to figure out that, if negative gearing were to be abolished, rents would also increase. Nobody wins out of this irresponsible policy.

If abolishing negative gearing was not enough for Bill Shorten and Labor, they also want to increase capital gains tax by 50 per cent. The negative impacts of this policy are endless. An increase of 50 per cent would see Australia's capital gains tax rate being higher than comparable nations such as New Zealand, the United Kingdom, Canada, South Africa and Japan.

We know that Labor does not like competition—those who struggle to compete on substance rarely do—but to wilfully place Australia at a disadvantage relative to other countries is really something that the optimist in me says should be surprising. Unfortunately, though, as someone who has lived in South Australia for the 16 years of Labor government, which happily is now at an end, I stopped being surprised at the dismal economic management skills of those in the Labor Party a long time ago.

Independent analysis of the impact that Labor's capital gains tax hike would have on our economy shows that Australia's GDP would fall by nearly $4 billion a year, wages would fall by about $600 a year for an average full-time earner, construction activity would fall, rents would rise and state budgets would be directly damaged as GST and property tax collections would fall. These policies are typical of the Labor Party. Labor does not respect regular Australians who work hard, save and invest. Labor has no issue punishing hardworking Australians by reaching into and damaging household budgets to pay for its own budget mismanagement.

Contrast Bill Shorten's and Labor's plan to hurt hardworking Australians with the positive and responsible budget that the federal government handed down last night. It was a budget that finally returned Australia to surplus. Because of the responsible economic management of the federal Coalition over the past six years, 10 million Australians and three million small businesses get a tax cut. I will repeat that so that the contrast is clear: the federal Coalition is delivering tax cuts; Bill Shorten and Labor want tax hikes.

The good news does not just end there with the very welcome tax cuts. Getting the budget back under control allows the government to make significant infrastructure investments, like the investment to complete the north-south corridor, investment in our regional roads and other congestion-busting projects within the Adelaide metropolitan area, as well as making record investments in our schools and hospitals.

Good economic management does not mean taking somebody else's hard-earned money. The federal Coalition has demonstrated that you can repair a Labor budget mess and return to surplus without increasing taxes. The contrast cannot be clearer: where those of us in the Liberal Party believe that hard work and aspiration are good things that should be encouraged, Labor believes that any benefits derived from hard work that are beyond the minimum standard are undeserved and therefore up for grabs.

Labor wants us all to be at the lowest common denominator, whereas we know that hard work deserves to be rewarded and that aspiration is not a dirty word. A Shorten Labor government poses just as much threat to our prosperity as those who sit opposite. I commend this motion to the house.

The Hon. C.L. WINGARD (Gibson—Minister for Police, Emergency Services and Correctional Services, Minister for Recreation, Sport and Racing) (11:57): I rise to speak in support of the member of Waite's motion:

That this house opposes Bill Shorten and Labor's plans to abolish negative gearing and increase capital gains tax by 50 per cent, which would damage Australia's housing market and destroy equity in people's homes.

The federal Labor Party's policy to make changes to negative gearing and increase the capital gains tax is coming at the worst possible time for the property market. We have seen that property prices are already on the decline in the Eastern States. Fortunately, property prices are still quite strong in South Australia, thanks to the policies and practices of the Marshall Liberal government, but Labor's planned changes are ringing alarm bells at every corner.

Labor thinks that this policy will impact the top end of town and bring more money back to the economy, but I can tell you that this housing tax will hurt everyday Australians the most. Everyday Australians are the backbone of our state and our communities. This policy has the potential to impact the property prices of around 1.3 million property owners across Australia. Approximately two-thirds of these people earn less than $80,000 a year and many are mum-and-dad investors.

This policy will hurt not just those who negatively gear investments but every property owner who has worked long and hard to build equity in their assets—assets they may have been building for their retirement. Independent analysis conducted by the Master Builders Association has shown that Labor's higher taxes will also lead to less building and investment, which will result in fewer jobs. Not only is the Labor Party determined to hurt everyday Australian families but this policy will also harm the construction industry and the other sectors that flow on from this industry—again, that means it will hurt jobs. The Marshall Liberal government is putting the cranes into the sky and Bill Shorten and a potential Labor government want to take them down.

A report conducted by RiskWise warned that median house prices could fall by a staggering 9 per cent. Reports by BIS Shrapnel show that this policy could see rents rise by as much as 10 per cent. This policy will be devastating for people—whether students, families or retirees—at all levels of the property market, whether renting, owning or investing. In turn, this policy will also see increases in the cost of living for many people, with effects on family businesses and family incomes. Renters will also have to spend much more on rent each week, instead of putting their money aside so they can one day achieve their own goal of owning a home.

We know that Labor does not care about the economy. The federal Liberal Party has worked extremely hard to fix up the mess of previous Labor governments and turn our economy around. Last night, we finally saw the federal Treasurer, Josh Frydenberg, forecast a budget surplus for the first time in 10 years. Unlike those opposite and their federal Labor colleagues, the Liberal Party do their research. We talk to the people that these policies affect. We look at the statistics and read the reports produced by the experts. We know that this Shorten Labor policy will not work. By introducing such a short-sighted and ridiculous policy, the Labor Party will hurt everyday Australians. They will hurt families and jobs and they will hurt our state.

Mr PEDERICK (Hammond) (12:01): I rise to support the motion moved by the member for Waite:

That this house opposes Bill Shorten and Labor's plans to abolish negative gearing and increase capital gains tax by 50 per cent, which would damage Australia's housing market and destroy equity in people's homes.

This is a very typical, short-sighted Labor policy. The Labor Party, both in this state and this country, are seen as a party who hate success. They hate employers, but they expect people to be employed. They hate people owning assets, but they still think that economic growth is going to come from somewhere. They think that things are going to roll along smoothly, they will suck tax out of people and everything will be rosy. That is not how it works.

There are a lot of battlers—hundreds of thousands of battlers—right across the market who have negatively geared property. They are the workers at the coalface, whether they be nurses, police, factory workers or farmhands—people having a fair crack to make a great future for themselves and who see the potential in negative gearing property.

We must remember that we are dealing with the Labor Party, who hate success at all levels. They may not say it publicly, but I think they do in some areas. They want to tax inheritance and death duties. They think that people who leave this earth should not pass on their success and that that money should be whittled away to everyone. I do not agree with that. Someone has worked hard, a family has worked hard or a couple has worked hard and they have created success. Why should they not enjoy that success?

With success come challenges. There are always challenges. People have a go and do not always win; sometimes they lose out. That happens too many times. If we do not have those risk-takers, those achievers, at all levels of society we will run into real trouble. If we do not have people investing in the housing market because they cannot see room for growth, where are some people going to live? We have already heard from other members on this side of the house that housing prices will decrease by 9 per cent and rents will go up by 10 per cent. I would have thought that some people who rent are Labor voters and some are Liberal voters.

We should be looking after the people who rent houses and make sure that housing is not just affordable but available. The housing market has definitely slowed, not so much here in this state but we have seen some massive slowdowns in the Eastern States, particularly in Sydney in New South Wales, and in Melbourne in Victoria. Prices have fallen for 12 consecutive months and property values in Sydney are down more than 6 per cent, and in Melbourne more than 4 per cent, from last year's peaks.

These movements followed intervention by the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority which sought to strengthen residential lending standards following an upsurge in lending to property investors. The decision by APRA to place a 10 per cent benchmark limit on the growth in bank lending to investors and clamp down on interest-only loans has had an impact. From a high of 10.8 per cent in mid-2015, growth in housing loans to investors has slowed to 1.5 per cent today. This has not come at the expense of lending to owner-occupiers, but credit growth has remained relatively stable at around 7.5 per cent over the last couple of years.

This has created a huge, changing dynamic away from investors driving much of the growth in the housing market to one where owner-occupiers are back playing the predominant role. This is particularly good news for people getting into the market for the first time. In the last 12 months, more than 100,000 first-home buyers received a loan approval, and that was the highest number since 2009. Their share of the overall number of owner-occupier loans was 18 per cent. This was significantly up from 12.9 per cent in early 2016. Acknowledging that the heat has come out of the housing market, the Reserve Bank said in its monetary policy statement:

Conditions in the Sydney and Melbourne housing markets have continued to ease and nationwide measures of rent inflation remain low.

This 'pull-back is a welcome development', said RBA governor, Philip Lowe, and is putting the market 'on a more sustainable footing'. One of the world's leading rating agencies, Standard & Poor's, recently reaffirmed Australia's AAA credit rating and has commented positively on the orderly unwind in the housing market, which it says 'won't weigh heavily on consumer spending and the financial system's asset quality'.

But—and this is the big but—all the benefits now flowing from this managed transition housing market are at risk from the Labor Party's and Bill Shorten's reckless attack on negative gearing and the capital gains tax discount. In their determination to drive property prices further down, Labor and Bill Shorten are taking to the next election a policy to limit negative gearing to only newly constructed housing and to cut the capital gains tax discount on assets that are held for longer than 12 months from 50 to 25 per cent.

This will punish not only the 1.3 million people with negatively geared properties across Australia but everyone with equity in their home because when they eventually sell their property they will do so in a market with fewer potential buyers. This is exactly what will happen if this Labor government is elected next month. What is more, many of those accessing negative gearing are people the public would not consider rich. Of course they do not. As I explained earlier in my contribution, there are many people just trying to make life better for themselves into the future, better for their family, better for their children, so that they have something to pass on to the next generations.

They are prepared to fight for it, they are prepared to battle for it, they are prepared to give up social events on weekends or going out for dinner and even to give up holidays so that they can build that base. You see and hear stories of people who have even gone for 10 or 20 years without a holiday because they are making a better life for themselves, yet here we have the Labor opposition federally and Bill Shorten wanting to belt all these people—good taxpaying citizens of this country—who are trying to make a better life.

These people are part of the workforce. About two-thirds of those with negatively geared properties have a taxable income of less than $80,000. Of everyone claiming a net rental loss, 70 per cent do so with only one property and 72 per cent claim a net loss of $10,000 or less. As I have indicated, these people who negatively gear property are among the 58,000 teachers, 41,000 nurses and 19,000 police and emergency service workers who look after us. A report by RiskWise warned of the unintended consequences. Property prices could fall about 9 per cent and rents could go up 10 per cent. Other published research suggests that Bill Shorten's Labor policy could accelerate the cyclical weaknesses in housing prices by further limiting housing demand, with spillover to consumer spending.

Australia is enjoying its 27th consecutive year of economic growth, a AAA credit rating from the three leading agencies and a budget deficit that is the lowest in a decade, and a budget was brought down yesterday by the federal Liberal and National government that will bring the budget into surplus. This is not the time to give Labor a chance to roll the dice with its reckless and punitive taxation policy that puts at risk our economic strength.

Mr DULUK (Waite) (12:11): I thank the members for Narungga and Newland, the minister for emergency services, recreation and sport (member for Gibson) and, of course, the member for Hammond for their contributions. We know that at least on this side of the house we care about mum-and-dad investors. We care about construction jobs in the housing industry. Most importantly, we fundamentally know that a Bill Shorten Labor government would be bad for Australia. Obviously, those opposite clearly support this policy, even though they know it is going to hurt their constituents and their voters. I urge the house to support the motion.

Motion carried.

Members interjecting:

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Member for Waite, the ayes have it. The motion is agreed to.

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