On last night’s Four Corner’s Home Truth’s special report, former Victorian premier, Jeff Kennett, lambasted Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull’s flip-flopping on negative gearing, whereby in 2005 he labelled it “tax avoidance” but now supports maintaining the lurk:
Jeff: Kennett: “Our Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull once described negative gearing as ‘tax fraud’. And in many cases he’s right”.
Reporter: “Actually, what Malcolm Turnbull called negative gearing was “tax avoidance” in a speech in 2005.
Jeff Kennett: “I don’t quite understand why he is now arguing against the proposition he put out before in supporting Labor. And I am sure if Labor hadn’t put out a policy on negative gearing, the conservatives would have. Which is the great disappointment of politics today”.
Reporter: “Why has the Prime Minister changed his view?
Jeff Kennett: “I think there is a simple reason: It’s all about winning the next election”…
Too right. Let’s also recap what Turnbull said about negative gearing and the capital gains tax (CGT) discount in his 2005 tax policy paper, whereby he described both lurks as a “sheltering tax haven” that is “skewing national investment away from wealth-creating pursuits, towards housing”, and has caused a “property bubble”.
Turnbull also admitted that “Australia’s rules on negative gearing are very generous compared to many other countries” and that “the normal deductibility principles do not apply to negatively geared real estate such that the taxpayer is not obliged to demonstrate that the negatively geared property will generate positive cash flow at some point in the distant future”.
What’s changed since 2005? Answer: Malcolm Turnbull’s short-term political aspirations.
