The vunerable Federal politicians who could lose their seats over negative gearing fallout: PCA
Australia’s largest industry, the property industry, has warned politicians that changes to negative gearing will exacerbate Australia’s undersupply of housing, harm average income earners and potentially see the politicians lose their seats.
Their data revealed that over 430,000 Australians who negative gear an investment property live in marginal seats held by the Government and the Opposition. The ten most marginal Coalition seats have an average of 8,181 investment property owners and the ten most marginal Labor seats have an average of 8,357 property owners.
Of the 632,000 landlords who own an investment property across Sydney and New South Wales, 375,000 use negative gearing, the Property Council of Australia says.
A snapshot across New South Wales and Victoria reveals the prevalence of negatively-geared homes in the outer suburbs and regional towns further afield.
“Mums and dads see owning an investment property as a way of securing their long term prosperity”, said Property Council Chief Executive Ken Morrison.
“Two million Australians own an investment property. These people are doing the right thing and investing for their retirement or putting away for a rainy day.
“To play with negative gearing is to play with the financial futures of 430,000 people who live in the most marginal seats.
"That’s enough voters to swing all of these seats eight and half times over, a big political risk to take with people with a lot at stake.
“Limiting interest deductibility will make investments more expensive. In turn, this will exacerbate Australia’s undersupply of housing and infrastructure. This is the wrong approach for the challenges we have to face.
“Australians already pay $72 billion a year in property taxes – and property owners don’t want government’s hands reaching even deeper into their pockets.”
