Sometimes political leaders send up a test balloon on a policy idea to gauge public reaction. The news that Treasury officials have been working on possible fresh housing measures, including options for changing negative gearing and capital gains tax, was not one of those times.
Since the promise to pare back negative gearing helped Labor lose an election they thought they’d win in 2019, nobody in the Albanese government has even dared to whisper about the possibility of doing it again. Not until this week and the accidental balloon.
