Perrottet breaks silence to call for negative gearing review

Former NSW premier Dominic Perrottet has called for negative gearing reforms to be put back on the table as part of a wider debate about how tax reform could address housing affordability.

In his first public appearance since losing the March election last year, Perrottet also said the Commonwealth should help NSW and Victoria cover the cost of infrastructure for new arrivals, given it was the federal government that benefited from the lazy economic “Ponzi scheme” of immigration.

At a lunch hosted by the Property Council of NSW on Thursday, Perrottet said housing had become a burning issue for Australians, both for those who could not afford a home and for those worried about their children. That provided an opportunity for governments to take a political risk.

Former premier Dominic Perrottet at a Property Council of Australia lunch on Thursday.

“The society today is very different than it was 100 years ago, and the tax system that’s in place today is still reminiscent of that,” he said. “It should be changed in such a way that drives opportunity, and things like negative gearing should be looked at. It could drive supply.

“I’m not advocating one way or another [on negative gearing]. But I’m saying it’s good government to go looking at this issue holistically. Should put everything on the table. ”

He also said stamp duty (which his government tried to reform) was a “terrible tax”.

Federal Labor leader Bill Shorten went to two elections vowing to scrap negative gearing on properties purchased after a certain date to improve housing affordability, but the party dumped the policy after its shock election loss in 2019 and neither party has revived it.

Perrottet also called on the federal government to contribute more to state infrastructure, saying NSW and Victoria took the bulk of immigrants but had to foot the bill for the services they needed, such as hospitals, transport and roads.

Immigration drove economic growth for the federal government, but “it’s lazy economics, simply having immigration as a Ponzi scheme, just adding people rather than driving productivity. As a state we pick up that tab … and the states should be receiving support”.

Sydney would struggle to house the big numbers of immigrants expected over the next 10 years, “let alone Australians. We can’t have an Australia that can’t house its children”.

Late last year, the Albanese government announced it would reduce infrastructure funding to the states, and left NSW stunned when it walked away from a critical road project in western Sydney.

Perrottet appeared at the lunch with former Labor premier Bob Carr, who agreed the Commonwealth should boost its infrastructure contribution.

As Premier Chris Minns faces a backlash from councils and residents over new policies to turbocharge building, including allowing six-storey apartments within 400-metre radiuses around dozens of train stations, Perrottet said councils should be given incentives.

He had some sympathy for rebelling North Shore residents, given most transport investment over the past decade had been in the west, and they had an “old road in the Pacific Highway – one of the worst roads in Sydney – and an old rail line”.

Perrottet, a father of seven, said Sydney needed a balance of housing, as apartments were attractive to younger people but “we need to make sure that there is still opportunity for suburbia, so people have a backyard and front yard for their kids to run around”.

He also said one of Minns’ greatest challenges would be to ensure notoriously siloed departments within the public service worked together.

Perrottet has not spoken publicly since the March 2023 election but broke his silence on Thursday, when he contributed to the condolence motion for late Labor treasurer Michael Egan in parliament and later discussed the housing crisis with former Labor premier Bob Carr at the lunch.

The former premier said he was “incredibly sad” to watch former Coalition prime ministers focusing on themselves and party division in the ABC television series Nemesis, and he said politicians hoped to leave office with a positive sense of their contribution.

“Eventually, you’re going to lose an election but you look back and reflect on all the positive things, there are obviously mistakes that we made but ultimately I think we did more good than bad.”