Extract from The Guardian
The treasurer, Scott Morrison,
says the Turnbull government will not be revisiting negative gearing,
but has agreed to play a role in the expansion of affordable housing for
people with low incomes.
Morrison met his state counterparts in Canberra on Friday, before next week’s Council of Australian Governments (Coag) meeting.
Speaking after the meeting, he said the government’s opposition to negative gearing changes was clear, despite renewed calls for a reconsideration of the tax regime.
The New South Wales planning minister, Rob Stokes, reignited the debate about negative gearing last week, saying it did nothing to improve housing supply where it was needed, but did help some people reduce their taxable income at the expense of other Australians.
The NSW premier, Mike Baird, then said the federal government ought to drop its ideological opposition to any reconsideration of negative gearing.
But Morrison said on Friday that any changes to negative gearing would upset the market.
“It is the government’s view that the mum and dad investors who actually provide the capital for the nation’s rental housing stock, if we were to withdraw that, then that has the only outcome of increasing rents, which is not good news for people on the lowest of incomes who are renting,” he said.
The treasurer said everyone at the meeting agreed to the recommendations in a report from the affordable housing working group.
The report, called Innovative Financing Models to Improve the Supply of Affordable Housing, recommends creating housing bonds to attract more private sector investment to affordable housing.
It says government support is required to leverage long-term institutional investment for affordable housing.
It defines “affordable rental housing” as housing that reduces or eliminates housing stress for low-income and disadvantaged families and allows them to meet other essential basic needs on a sustainable basis.
“One of the challenges that is faced by those developing affordable housing is access to longer term affordable finance,” Morrison said.
“The access to capital is a critical issue for that sector and this would involve states and commonwealth working together to act as a bond aggregator to put finance into those developments.
“Whether the commonwealth just took that or did it in partnership with states, that’s something we will now work on.”
Morrison said much of the discussion about housing affordability centred on first home buyers, but 30% of Australians rented and half of them were on low incomes.
“We believe that when you’re dealing with housing, you’ve got to deal with it from homelessness all the way through,” he said.
“Today’s report, I think, demonstrated that our focus is right across the spectrum, and all treasurers were very keen to stress that point.”
The shadow treasurer, Chris Bowen, has criticised Morrison’s refusal to consider negative gearing changes as part of a suite of housing policy reforms.
“Scott Morrison is simply not up to the job of leading reform on tax and housing affordability,” he said.
“Malcolm Turnbull and Scott Morrison are oblivious of the housing affordability crisis that threatens to see a generation of Australian young people locked out of the housing market.”
Morrison met his state counterparts in Canberra on Friday, before next week’s Council of Australian Governments (Coag) meeting.
Speaking after the meeting, he said the government’s opposition to negative gearing changes was clear, despite renewed calls for a reconsideration of the tax regime.
The New South Wales planning minister, Rob Stokes, reignited the debate about negative gearing last week, saying it did nothing to improve housing supply where it was needed, but did help some people reduce their taxable income at the expense of other Australians.
The NSW premier, Mike Baird, then said the federal government ought to drop its ideological opposition to any reconsideration of negative gearing.
But Morrison said on Friday that any changes to negative gearing would upset the market.
“It is the government’s view that the mum and dad investors who actually provide the capital for the nation’s rental housing stock, if we were to withdraw that, then that has the only outcome of increasing rents, which is not good news for people on the lowest of incomes who are renting,” he said.
The treasurer said everyone at the meeting agreed to the recommendations in a report from the affordable housing working group.
The report, called Innovative Financing Models to Improve the Supply of Affordable Housing, recommends creating housing bonds to attract more private sector investment to affordable housing.
It says government support is required to leverage long-term institutional investment for affordable housing.
It defines “affordable rental housing” as housing that reduces or eliminates housing stress for low-income and disadvantaged families and allows them to meet other essential basic needs on a sustainable basis.
“One of the challenges that is faced by those developing affordable housing is access to longer term affordable finance,” Morrison said.
“The access to capital is a critical issue for that sector and this would involve states and commonwealth working together to act as a bond aggregator to put finance into those developments.
“Whether the commonwealth just took that or did it in partnership with states, that’s something we will now work on.”
Morrison said much of the discussion about housing affordability centred on first home buyers, but 30% of Australians rented and half of them were on low incomes.
“We believe that when you’re dealing with housing, you’ve got to deal with it from homelessness all the way through,” he said.
“Today’s report, I think, demonstrated that our focus is right across the spectrum, and all treasurers were very keen to stress that point.”
The shadow treasurer, Chris Bowen, has criticised Morrison’s refusal to consider negative gearing changes as part of a suite of housing policy reforms.
“Scott Morrison is simply not up to the job of leading reform on tax and housing affordability,” he said.
“Malcolm Turnbull and Scott Morrison are oblivious of the housing affordability crisis that threatens to see a generation of Australian young people locked out of the housing market.”
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