Advocacy groups push for Chalmers to scrap $20b housing tax breaks before budget
Statement from: House You, Everybody’s Home, Antipoverty Centre, Better Renting, Think Forward, Tomorrow Movement and Foundation for Young Australians
You can’t fix the housing crisis while we hand $20 billion a year to property investors.
We all know Australia is in a housing crisis. Rents are unaffordable. Homelessness is rising. Public housing waitlists stretch decades. And every year, the federal government hands $20 billion in tax breaks to property investors through negative gearing and the capital gains tax discount at the direct expense of the people who need housing most. As global economic uncertainty stretches so many of us well past breaking point, the case for tax reform has never been stronger or more urgent.
This week, reports suggest Treasurer Jim Chalmers is leaning toward scrapping the Howard-era capital gains tax discount and returning to the pre-1999 inflation indexation method. Our organisations welcome this. It is exactly the kind of leadership this crisis demands.
We call on Treasurer Jim Chalmers to use the 2026 Budget to:
- Scrap negative gearing and the capital gains tax discount entirely
- Direct the $20 billion in annual savings towards funding public, high quality homes for the people who need them
The evidence is clear. These tax breaks inflate property prices, reward hoarding over housing, fuel inequality and drain public revenue that could fund the homes people actually need.
Our organisations reject half-measures, including reducing the CGT discount, limiting negative gearing to one or two investment properties, or grandfathering changes so existing investors continue to unfairly benefit. These are not reforms. They maintain handouts to the wealthy few at the expense of the majority.
Our organisations represent renters, those in poverty, people forced into homelessness and housing precarity, young people, communities locked out of secure housing and everybody who believes we all deserve a safe, secure, accessible place to live.
We are united: the only reform equal to the scale of the crisis is to urgently end handouts for property investors, with the tax revenue directed to providing high quality, beautiful public homes.
The 2026 Budget is a once-in-a-generation opportunity for real reform. It is time to deliver.
Available for comment:
- Maiy Azize, Everybody’s Home National Spokesperson
- Angela Cartwright, Better Renting Chief Executive Officer
- Kristin O’Connell, Antipoverty Centre Spokesperson
Contacts for media: Nick Cassella, Economic Media Centre – 0423 471 996; Chels Hood Withey, House You – 0406 182 746
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