Labor's negative gearing policy helped keep it from office: research

Research on the last election results show seats with the higher numbers of property investors bucked the swing against the Turnbull government.

Analysis by Australian Demographic Strategies, headed by former Labor senator John Black, found seats with large number of investment property owners and people who were negatively geared “voted for the Coalition and swung far less towards the ALP”.

“When we ranked federal seats by per capita investment properties, the top four seats — Reid and Bennelong in NSW, Kooyong in Victoria and Curtin in WA — swung towards the Coalition by an average of 2 per cent, despite a ­national swing of 3 per cent to Labor,’’ ADS reported in an article in The Australian.

“The bottom five seats for per capita investment properties — Bass and Lyons in Tasmania, Macarthur and Chifley in NSW and Blair in Queensland — swung an average of 7.5 percent to the ALP.’’

Treatment of investment property was a significant policy difference between the Coalition and Labor at the July 2 Federal election.

Bill Shorten proposed to limit negative gearing to new properties from July 1 next year and cut the capital gains tax discount from 50 per cent to 25 per cent.

Malcolm Turnbull argued that Labor policy would "smash" property prices and deter investment.