Labor is hastening its pre-election tactical retreat from unsellable tax policies. Its earlier plans to oppose the Coalition’s stage three personal tax cuts have now been joined on the scrap heap by the Shorten-era proposals to curb negative gearing and cut the 50 per cent capital gains tax discount that had made successful property investors out of teachers and nurses.
The tax U-turn raises the question of what does the possible Labor treasurer Jim Chalmers believe to be the right policy, and not just in political terms. Alex Ellinghausen