There was a moment in our post-budget podcast episode that accidentally revealed the enormous challenge the government had created for themselves by making housing tax reform the centrepiece of their economic policy.
It was when Scott was breaking down exactly how the changes to negative gearing and capital gains tax would work, and he acknowledged how complicated these changes were.
That’s the issue with a lot of tax policy, but particularly when a government tries to reform the kinds of loopholes that sound highly technical.
On the surface, reforming tax breaks for property investors should seem like a simple political win. Only 8.7 per cent of the population are landlords, and they aren’t exactly the kind of people who tug on the heartstrings of the rest of us.
Renters on the other hand, are a larger proportion of the population, younger demographically and Labor is more interested in winning over people who will be voting in elections for decades to come.
So why has Labor’s primary vote taken a hit after the budget, and why is it one of the least popular in modern history?
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