The more desperate a government becomes the shriller scare campaigns tend to get, which is exactly what we are seeing with the Liberal Partys renewed attacks on Labors responsible negative gearing reforms.

The housing market has been a source of great frustration for younger families in places like Sydney. Home ownership is at its lowest point across Australia in 60 years. The Labor Party recognises this. The Liberal Party doesnt. They are simply out of touch.

Labors policy to restrict negative gearing to new homes will level the playing field so first home buyers and young Australians can realise the great Australian dream of owning their own home.

Labor wants to level the playing field so first homeowners dont have to compete with investors that in Australia have some of the most generous housing tax concessions in the developed world.

Labors reforms are fully grandfathered which means that everyone that has a negatively geared investment property today will be completely unaffected by our changes.

The government wants you to believe theyre standing up for battlers and working-class Australians.

But the fastest growing cohorts of people with negatively geared investment properties are those with three, four, five and six properties. The most generous tax concessions in the developed world mean wealthier investors get a subsidy from the government while first home buyers get locked out. How is that fair?

We prefer to invest in better hospitals, schools and TAFE than spend taxpayers money helping a property speculator with their sixth or seventh investment property.

The government argues with a straight face that Labors changes will take a sledgehammer to house prices at the same time that house prices in Sydney have just notched up the largest yearly fall in decades.

So price falls under the Liberal Party were seeing now are good but any possible falls under Labor are bad? You simply cant make this stuff up.
When attacking Labors responsible reforms, the government relies on its mates from the property sector and vested interests.

Meanwhile, Labor relies on independent experts. Well respected independent economists such as Saul Eslake have rightly said that reforming negative gearing would remove a source of upward pressure while analysis done by the Grattan Institute shows Labors policies will have only a modest impact on prices.

This follows Treasury analysis that the government tried to conceal, which advised the government that Labors changes would have only modest impacts.

Labors reforms are good for home ownership, good for the budget and will make the tax system fairer. Our reforms will put first home buyers back on a level playing field. It will be left to a Labor government to improve housing affordability for all Australians.

This opinion piece was first published in the Daily Telegraph on Thursday, 8 November 2018.