If Anthony Albanese continues to be exposed lying, exaggerating or misleading voters, as he was again today, he risks losing the most precious quality of any political leader: respect.
The latest dishonesty was about changes to the capital gains tax, a charge on increases in the values of property, businesses, shares and other investments that has galvanized opposition to the Government.
The top Treasury public servant, Jenny Wilkinson, conceded on Thursday morning the new arrangements will be more punitive in two important ways than the system that operated in the 1990s and ‘80s.
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The Prime Minister made the distinction important. He minimised the changes’ effects by stating “what we are simply doing is returning the system to what was there before 1999”.
The statement, which was made on May 19 in a radio interview in Perth, is untrue or misleading. The original system was more generous to investors because it charged tax on gains made over five years rather than one — saving investors money when prices fell.
“That has not been part of the announcements that the Government’s made in relation to the tax package,” Ms Wilkinson told a Senate committee.
She acknowledged the new rules do not include Mr Albanese’s minimum 30 per cent tax either.
Political damage
Does it matter? The Prime Minister’s supporters might argue he is being held to too high a standard. After all, the details of the changes have been public since May 12, when Treasurer Jim Chalmers presented the Budget in Canberra.
“Well, our policies are very clear,” he said in the Perth interview. “When the capital gains occurs, it’s looked at the real gains, that is the gains less inflation as we go forward. And that’s a system that operated effectively between 1985 to 1999.”
Voters will decide whether Mr Albanese has breached their trust once again. But it is obvious the perception he lied about his intention to make the biggest changes to property investing in decades has caused Mr Albanese and the Labor Party serious political damage.
The worst poll performance since the government won power in 2022 and approval ratings for the leader look like an important shift in the Australian political psyche. The folksy, inoffensive persona that comforted many isn’t working any more.
Housing debate
He has done a service to Australia, though, by inspiring a debate across society about housing — whether it should be cheaper and how to get more of it.
Despite the Government’s prediction the tax increases will slow price gains by 2 percentage points, no one really knows. The effects will likely vary across types of housing, from inner-city apartments to country blocks.
What is clear is quirks are already emerging from the Government’s housing policies. Some 51,000 foreigners living in Australia have been granted access to the 5 per cent mortgage deposit scheme, a subsidy designed to help young people buy their first house or apartment.
“I just think that’s absolutely extraordinary and the Government really should explain what they were thinking when they expanded this program to include non-citizens,” the Coalition’s housing spokesman, Andrew Bragg, said today.
Housing is an important part of the immigration debate, and Senator Bragg’s questioning of bureaucrats on Wednesday evening about the mortgage scheme led Industry Minister Tim Ayers to suggest he was offending future citizens.
“You want to keep those people away, and their families away, I suppose that is a matter for you,” he said.
Stepping up
The population has increased by two million people since Labor took power, while only 600,000 homes have been built, according to Senator Bragg. The consequences are obvious to everyone: surging prices, a rental property shortage and a general disturbance in the state of the nation.
The Albanese Government’s much-promoted $10 billion Housing Australia Future Fund hasn’t really helped, building only 1432 houses in two-and-a-half years.
But the private sector is stepping up. The number of new homes approved in the 12 months ended April 31, surpassed 200,000. While that is well short of the number needed to meet the national target, it was described as “good momentum” by the Housing Industry Association.
House prices are falling in Sydney and Melbourne too, although that seems to be more due to interest rate increases rather than the Budget.
So there has been progress on making housing for obtainable for Australians without established wealth, which would otherwise be promising news for the Albanese Government.
Which the Prime Minister cannot capitalise on, politically, because the man who has negatively geared an investment property looks today just like another dishonest politician.
