In 1985 Paul Keating decided that negative gearing was “an outrageous rort” and removed it from the entitlements enjoyed by home-owners.

When economist Saul Eslake recounted his investigation into the impact of Keating’s abolition on housing, he quoted Hitler’s propaganda minister, Joseph Goebbels, who is alleged to have said that if a lie is big enough and you tell it often enough, it becomes truth.

The property lobby at the time launched a huge scare campaign against changes to negative gearing made by Paul Keating. They claimed that it would play havoc with the housing rental market.

That contention did not stand up to Eslake’s scrutiny.

While there were significant rises in rents in Sydney and Perth, he found that that was due to the tighter rental market in those cities and were not related to the tax change.

Significantly, there was no uniform rent rise across capital cities. During that period real rents fell considerably in Brisbane and Adelaide, while Melbourne experienced no real growth in rents. But after the housing lobby’s full-scale scare campaign, Keating backed down, allowing landlords to rush in and buy multiple properties. Within two years, prices jumped by 60 per cent, thereby squeezing out many first home buyers in the process.

The overwhelming economic evidence shows that in its present form negative gearing distorts the housing market, allowing those who own multiple properties to vie in the same playing field as those who are still trying to buy their first home.

Providing a mechanism to taper the housing boom trajectory, while still allowing properties to appreciate in value, is far more equitable for those still pursuing the Australian dream.

Leading Australian economists recognise that negative gearing over-inflates the price of real estate. Besides Eslake – Richard Holden, David Murray, Warwick McGibbin and John Daly also recognise that negative gearing causes real estate distortion.

It was Malcolm Turnbull himself that said in 2005 “Australia’s rules on negative gearing are very generous compared to many other countries”. Now he uses the language of Whyalla saying if Labor’s changes are introduced housing values will be “smashed”.

As his counterparts in the New South Wales government argue that this issue should at least be discussed, it will take more than Whyalla type statements to convince voters otherwise.

Frank Carroll

The Palaszczuk Labor Government has mapped out the path forward towards expunging historical homosexual convictions in Queensland.

Attorney-General and Minister for Justice, Yvette D’Ath MP, has tabled a Queensland Law Reform Commission report into the process recommended and has outlined the Government response to that report.

“For the Palaszczuk Government, this has always been a question of how these historical convictions should be expunged, not whether it should be done,” said Mrs D’Ath.

“The QLRC Report recommends creating a framework that would allow eligible people to apply on a case-by-case basis.

“On that and many other substantive recommendations, the Government will adopt this report.”

However Mrs D’Ath identified a number of issues where the government will depart from the report’s recommendations:
• in addition to sexual acts once described as ‘gross indecency’, the framework will also apply to certain public morality offences where the charge related to consensual homosexual activity; &
• the government’s proposed scheme will be limited to historical offences involving consenting adults.

“It is important that Queenslanders are not burdened by the stigma attached to criminal charges and convictions that were made under the laws of a bygone age,” Mrs D’Ath said.

Consultation with stakeholders on draft legislation has now commenced in the anticipation that legislation will be introduced to Parliament in the first half of 2017.