Labor being ‘tricky’ with latest negative gearing pledge, Nationals leader David Littleproud says

Labor’s commitment to not touch negative gearing or capital gains taxes before the election must be taken with a grain of salt, the Coalition says, suggesting changes would come at Australians “like a freight train” in a minority Government.

Housing Minister Clare O’Neil on Monday categorically ruled out taking any changes to the politics to the next election - due by May 17 - saying the Government’s priority was on bolstering supply.

“A big focus (of ours is) building, supporting renters, helping homeowners,” she told ABC.

“For 30 or 40 years we have not been building enough homes in Australia. Almost everything the Australian government is doing is making sure that we provide more housing for Australians and then give Australians the opportunity to buy into those homes.”

Labor has previously said there were “currently no plans” to tinker with the policies, language many speculated left the door open to a future shift.

But Nationals leader David Littleproud said Ms O’Neil had simply again engaged in “tricky language”, and suggested Labor would have no choice but to backtrack on its own pledge if it falls into minority Government.

“That’s tricky language for me, so there’s no decision to change that. This means that if Labor gets in with the Greens and the teals and the independents, then they’ll start to come up after that,” he told Sky News.

“Labor said they wouldn’t touch superannuation, and now they’re trying to tax unrealised capital gains.

“If they do get a minority government, (negative gearing changes are) coming like a freight train, just look at that crossbench.”

With Prime Minister Anthony Albanese slated to call an election in the next few weeks, all polls indicate he is set to lose his parliamentary majority and will have to rely on the crossbench to form a minority Government.

Labor on the weekend placed a two-year moratorium on foreign investors buying existing homes, their latest bid to ease the housing crisis. It will impact less than one per cent of buyers.

Ms O’Neil said that decision had been made because Australians were under “real pressure”, and not just because the Coalition had already announced such a plan.

But, she acknowledged it was “not a silver bullet”.

“There is no silver bullet to Australia’s housing crisis,” she said.

“If this was an easy problem to solve, a government would have done this a long time ago.”