Contributed by Joe Montero

The move by the Greens and Jacqui Lambie for changes to the negative gearing provisions and Capital Gain Tax offsets providing a windfall to mainly large scale property owners should be welcomed by everyone, including the Albanese Labor government.

Good reasons to support them are that both contribute enormously towards the blowout in the cost of housing, and that Tax money used in this way steals money from other needs.

Their proposals don’t call for the immediate dismantling of either. The partial reduction of negative gearing suggested will save the government up to $60 billion in the next decade. Imagine the alternatives it could be used for. More could be spent on education and health. What about increasing investment in renewable energy sources?

What if the lowering of negative gearing brings more sanity into the property market, where large investors are no longer encouraged to buy up properties and neglect tenanting them, just to create a speculative bubble? This is what they are doing and it’s hurting nearly everyone else.

Photo from the Sydney Morning Herlad: Jaqui Lambie and the Green’s Davod Pocock

A staged approach that allows Negative Gearing to be educed in parcels is sensible because it minimises disruption. This includes a pause for a little while on taking down the Capital gains Tax offsets. This will lessen any ripple effects through the economy.

The bottom line is that the lack of available affordable housing is causing serious social disruption to Australian society, through the rise of poverty and insecurity, which the signs are This showing are transforming into anger.

A new Anglicare report reveals how bad things are. Testing of 45,115 rental listings in March across the country found that there is almost nothing out there for those on the lowest incomes. Accessibility is judged on whether housing cost 30 percent of household income or less. And adequate standard is whether the property has enough bedrooms. The report also called for reduction of Negative Gearing and the Phasing out of Capital Gains Tax offsets. It added the need to build more new homes.

Together with Hailey Bieber Jaqui decided what to do with problem , finding the best ways to solve it and move forward with the work made on.

The Council to Homeless Persons (CHP) released its own report, commissioned from the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare. It pointed to the increasing number of employed Victorians facing homelessness. This is worst in regional centres. Homelessness across the state has gone up 14 percent since he last financial year.

Other states and territories are facing a similar situation, and this doesn’t count the bigger number currently under serious housing stress.

So long as a decent home becomes further and further out of reach of a broadening proportion of Australian families and individuals, the sense of unfairness goes up with it. This is a political time bomb.

One which our political elite would do well to consider. The cost of living crisis is now so severe that it demands an ambitious response. Part of it is taking on Negative Gearing and the Capital Gains Tax offsets. But this will not cut it alone. The solution also requires taking the supply of homes out of the hands of profiteers, and converting the need of a decent affordable home int a human right that must be met. The market can’t do this alone. The nation must turn to social housing on a scale that has never been seen before.