From the AFR:
The government’s assault on Labor’s negative gearing tax has suffered an embarrassing setback with the authors of a damning report saying it was written late last year and had nothing to do with Labor’s policy released just a month ago.
Just hours after Treasurer Scott Morrison used the findings to slam Labor’s policy for driving up rents and dragging the economy backwards, BIS Shrapnel associate director Kim Hawtrey made an urgent clarification.
“The assumptions were set several months ago, and the analysis done late last year, well before Labor announced its policy. Therefore the assumptions do not align with Labor’s policy,” he told The Australian Financial Review.
And The Australian:
…BIS Shrapnel associate director Kim Hawtrey today said the report was authored “over the last few months before Labor released its policy” and “wasn’t directed at any particular policy”.
…Mr Hawtrey said the modelling was commissioned “for commercial reasons, not for political reasons” by a private client who was not the real estate lobby or any political entity.
Mr Shorten seized on Mr Hawtrey’s remarks to deride the modelling as a “joke” that did not pass the “giggle test”.
“The report doesn’t model Labor’s policies. It models a set of fantasy assumptions and then draws its own conclusions,” he said.
“What is even more laughable is that the Treasurer has now, nailed his credibility to a report with no credibility.”
Correct, and here is the Treasurer still wearing the BIS Shrapnel report:
Who commissioned the poop, BIS?
