Capital gains tax changes are on the table, and yet Armageddon has not arrived. Has the tide on housing turned at last?

‘Prior to Howard and Costello introducing the capital gains tax discount in 1999, negative gearing was not a big deal. But the discount made negative gearing a smart accountancy move,’ writes Greg Jericho. Photograph: Peter Whyte/The Guardian

A funny thing happened on the way to the budget: changes to capital gains tax and negative gearing, which had for years been a no-go zone, are now looking likely.

One of the first times I wrote about negative gearing was in 2015 when I covered the then treasurer Joe Hockey appearing on Q+A. He said negative gearing was needed because when the Hawke government scrapped it in the 1980s rental prices rose.