Shorten reaffirms negative gearing stance in budget response speech

Negative gearing

If there was any slim chance the Labor party would rethink its stance on negative gearing before today, Mr Shorten’s speech on Thursday night removed any doubt from backing down on his party’s stance to remove negative gearing for buying existing properties.

In his speech, Mr Shorten claimed negative gearing was standing in the way of young Australians owning property.

“If you’re currently negatively gearing, the rules won’t change. If you want to use it on new homes, you still can. But you cannot have property investors playing with loaded dice against our young people, Generation Y and the Millennials,” Mr Shorten said in his speech.

“Instead of patronising millions of young Australians with lectures about cutting back on smashed avo, why don’t we tell them the truth? Getting together a 20 per cent deposit plus stamp duty is much, much harder than it was 20 or 25 years ago.

“And it is even more difficult when your government uses your taxpayer money to subsidise the property investors bidding against you.”

He said that the intergenerational bias established in Australia’s tax system needs to be called out, and that a Labor government would “stop the bias against first-home buyers and young Australians”.

Infrastructure

Also included in Mr Shorten’s speech was Labor’s commitment towards infrastructure, outlining the various projects they would fund if elected.

Those projects are planned to be:

NSW

• The Western Sydney metro

Victoria

• The Subrurban Rail Loop in Melbourne

Queensland

• $1.5 billion in funding was announced for
  
  • upgrading the Gateway Motorway from Bracken Ridge to Pine River
  • the next stage of the Bruce Highway from the northern suburbs to CabooltureCaboolture, QLD Caboolture, QLD
• The Cross River Rail in Brisbane
• Development of the beef roads
• Development of the Rockhampton Ring Road

South Australia

• South Road

Western Australia

• METRONET in PerthPerth, TAS Perth, WA
• Development of the beef roads

Tasmania

• The BridgewaterBridgewater, TAS Bridgewater, SA Bridge

Northern Territory

• Upgrading the roads close to Kakadu
• Development of the beef roads

Australian Capital Territory

• Completing phase 2 of the ACT light rail

What else?

Additionally, the promises Mr Shorten also said he planned to commit towards that could most impact property investors included:

• tax cuts for those earning less than $40,000 a year,
• pay the fees for 100,000 TAFE placements, 
• give businesses an additional 20 per cent tax break for those that use productivity-boosting equipment over $20,000,
• a $2,000 payment to families that use renewable energy,
• investing in women escaping domestic abuse situations,
• 150,000 apprentices for jobs,
• stop companies using “sham contracts and dodgy labour-hire arrangements”, and
• new investments to remove mobile blackspots.

“In conclusion, my fellow Australians, I suspect that some in the government will spend a lot of time telling you to be afraid – afraid of change, afraid of new ideas, afraid of the future, afraid of each other. I expect we’ll see more of that in the campaign ahead,” Mr Shorten said.

“I have a different view. I’m optimistic about our nation’s future because this country has so much going for us: a continent to call our own, next to the fastest-growing economies in the world, and the resources to be an energy superpower.

“We have the skills, the science and the get-up-and-go to create new industries. Best of all, we have our people. Australians are hardworking, caring, brave, smart and generous.”