LETTER: Negative gearing a working class dud from day one

"IN A RICH country, we should all be able to afford the basics of life; shelter being number one, then food, electricity and medical."

NEGATIVE gearing, something I know very little about, it is a part of life for Australian investors, and a property buzzword. But it seems to be the one thing that is keeping house prices where our children can't afford to buy.

I know everyone on negative gearing will jump on me, but I must be right because Malcolm keeps saying that if Bill does away with negative gearing house prices will fall. Malcolm says it like it is a bad thing.

It's time we looked at housing as something we live in and not as an investment like the stock market where we can gamble and make money.

I don't believe house prices will fall but I do think once we take away the incentive to use houses as investments instead of domiciles then the price may stagnate for a while.

As far as our children are concerned, this can only be a good thing.

Once the transition period between investment and housing has passed we will see house prices start to rise again but without negative gearing we will never see house prices rocket out of control again.

We are told it's the mum and dad's way of getting into the investment market, but when you look into it you find that seven out of ten of negative gearers are in the top two tax brackets.

Paul Keating got rid of negative gearing once when he was Treasurer, but he brought it back to see if it might encourage cheaper rent.

Instead, it put a rocket under speculative housing investment and helped lift house prices, which made rents go up.

In a rich country, we should all be able to afford the basics of life, shelter being number one then food, electricity and medical.

Negative gearing has been a dud for the working class from the start and it needs to come to an end.

Harry Creevey, Old Bonalbo

Originally published as LETTER: Negative gearing a working class dud from day one