Adam Bandt pitches housing reform if Greens hold balance of power, defiant PM will need party to form govt

Greens leader Adam Bandt has made his election pitch to reform negative gearing and end capital gains tax discounts on investment properties if he holds the balance of power in a minority government after the May 3 Federal poll.

Mr Bandt began a speech to the National Press Club by slamming the “battle of the bandaids” from the two major parties over the “human right” of decent housing.

“This election, the Greens are the party of renters and first home buyers,” he said, spruiking the minority party’s other key pledges to add dental treatment to Medicare, end native forest logging and provide free, universal, high quality childcare.

Mr Bandt argued that former Prime Minister John Howard’s changes to tax breaks for property investors were a “time bomb” that needed to be defused.

Parliamentary Library data pulled together for the Greens suggests dumping the two tax breaks would lead to 850,000 more Australians living in their own home.

The party also argues that negative gearing and the capital gains tax discount cost the country more than $10b a year, compared to more than the $8.4b state and territory governments spent on public and community housing in 2022-23 combined.

Under the Greens plan, existing arrangements for “mum and dad investors” who only have one investment property would be grandfathered.

But Mr Bandt said those looking to buy their “third, fourth or fifteenth house” shouldn’t be getting “a government cheque” to help, adding that over the next ten years, property investors will gain $176b in tax handouts while younger generations struggle to get a foot on the housing ladder.

However, his housing pitch has already been rejected by Labor, the party he aspires to form a minority government with.

Ahead of his speech, Housing Minister Clare O’Neil said the Treasury examination of his two proposed measures showed scrapping them wouldn’t help housing supply at all.

“The Prime Minister looked at the negative gearing capital gains tax proposals during this term in office, and he wasn’t convinced that it would not have a negative impact on supply,” she said.

Education Minister Jason Clare also ruled out the move, saying a future Labor Government would not be willing to revisit changes to property tax concessions.

“What we want to do is build more homes. We’ve seen Australia over the first three years of this government, build half a million homes,” he told ABC radio national.

Mr Bandt also glossed over Prime Minister Albanese’s unequivocal and repeated rejection of the prospect of doing a deal with the Greens to hold power in a second term.

“I think it would be astounding if, after the election, with a diversity of voices in Parliament, the Prime Minister or anyone else, then says, ‘no, I’m not going to respect the result. I’m not going to talk to anyone’.”