Labor's war on landlords: Proof Albo's government hasn't abandoned hated policy that could force YOU to sell your home. This is what every property investor must know
Anthony Albanese has repeatedly ruled out messing with negative gearing, but many Australians with a mortgage are convinced Labor's war on landlords is far from over.
In fact, many have big concerns that the 'dead and buried' policy idea might make a comeback during Albo's second term, if he's re-elected.
They have reason to fear.
I've been tipped off to a resurfaced video that's doing the rounds in private Facebook groups for landlords across the country.
In the clip, first broadcast in March 2022, Youth Minister Anne Aly tells the ABC's Q+A program she supports scrapping negative gearing.
She was, in fact, defending a policy Albo himself got rid of soon after becoming Labor leader six years ago.
'I thought it was a good policy and I thought that we had good policies for housing affordability,' she tells Virginia Trioli in the video.
'Unfortunately, it was all misconstrued and, you know, it was all put out there and there was a whole lot of misinformation and disinformation put out there about Labor's policies, but we had the right policy settings to improve housing affordability.'
When Albo took over the Labor leadership six years ago, he scrapped his predecessor Bill Shorten's hated policy that saw the ALP suffer huge swings against it in outer suburban seats
Labor lost its second straight election in 2019, after vowing to scrap negative gearing for future purchases of existing homes.
Astonishingly, Dr Aly candidly admitted she loved a policy that voters hated, despite then being an Opposition backbencher with a marginal seat just weeks before the May 2022 election.
Clearly, this is a policy that remains very much on the minds of influential Labor figures - even if Albo has kept it off the table since replacing Bill Shorten as leader.
The availability of negative gearing means landlords can buy an unlimited number of homes for capital growth, and still claim the rental losses on tax.
While scrapping negative gearing could see fewer investors compete with potential owner-occupier borrowers for a house at auction, fewer investors also means renters would have less choice.
This means they could well end up paying even more for somewhere to live during a housing crisis.
This is what happened during the mid-1980s, when Bob Hawke's Labor government scrapped negative gearing for two years, only to reinstate it as renters suffered.
It's also naïve to suggest most renters aspiring to buy their own home would have enough saved up for a 20 per cent mortgage deposit in the event of rentals suddenly becoming scarce.
The ability of landlords to claim their rental losses on tax has long been seen as part of life in Australia as a mum-and-dad investor (stock image posed by models)
Anne Aly, who is now the Youth Minister, told the ABC's Q+A program in March 2022 that she supported scrapping negative gearing
And don't get me started on government schemes to get in with a five per cent mortgage deposit, with taxpayers underwriting the rest of the mortgage deposit.
The $900,000 limit in Sydney for the First Home Guarantee is well below the city's ultra-expensive median house price approaching $1.5million.
Brisbane's $700,000 cap is also well below the Queensland capital's mid-point house price, which is now a shade under $1million following a 9.4 per cent price surge during the past year, based on CoreLogic data.
House prices have mainly surged because of record-high immigration, which has seen foreigners flood into Sydney, as native Sydneysiders flee to Brisbane in search of more affordable housing.
This only drives up real estate values, giving investors a reason to keep buying more properties to take advantage of strong population growth, and locking out younger buyers.
Both sides of politics in Australia have fiddled with taxes, even after vowing they wouldn't - so a Labor U-turn on negative gearing wouldn't be unprecedented.
Former Liberal prime minister John Howard introduced the GST in July 2000, five years after telling voters as opposition leader there would 'never ever' be a GST.
This was after the Coalition had lost the 1993 election with a 15 per cent GST policy.
The Howard government, however, was re-elected in 1998, suffering the loss of 14 seats, as it took a 10 per cent GST to the people.
Labor went to the last election vowing to leave former Liberal PM Scott Morrison's stage three tax cuts untouched, along with no changes to superannuation.
But it broke both of those promises.
Dr Aly was at least being honest when she described her true thoughts on negative gearing.
You can hardly blame investor landlords for feeling nervous.
