As leaks surrounding prospective policy changes to negative gearing and the capital gains tax discount continue to percolate from Canberra to the press, the proposals have met swift disapproval from some commentators.
In the latest instance of a theme that has now persisted in Australian federal politics for decades, they have been dismissed as “The politics of envy”.
After a rather basic examination of the facts, it’s clear that the support for this sort of proposed change to the way that demand for housing manifests is primarily driven not by envy of the wealth that has been amassed by the property investor class in aggregate but by the desire for something much more basic: owning a home.
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