The Own Goal Labor Can't Stop Scoring
Series note: Commentary on how decisions are made, who makes them, and what they actually produce.
By Aiden Garrison
Two days before the 2019 federal election, Sportsbet paid out millions of dollars on a Labor victory.
The result looked certain.
Then Labor lost.
Seven of every ten bets had been on Shorten. One punter walked away with $128,000 before a single vote was counted. The company lost over $5.2 million on an election that was supposed to be unloseable.
The consensus on why was almost unanimous. Negative gearing. Franking credits. Capital gains tax. Shorten walked in carrying a suite of property and investment tax reforms, and a nation of homeowners and self-funded retirees quietly decided they didn't like the sound of it.
Because here is the thing about Australian politics that this series keeps arriving at. The system isn't shaped by what's sensible. It's shaped by what's survivable. And property tax reform has been proven unsurvivable.
Labor learned that the hard way. Don't touch the third rail. Grab it and you die.
I have my own proof of how deep this went.
On election night I rang my mother. She's voted Labor her entire life. I asked who she'd voted for.
"Scott Morrison."
I literally fell out of bed. And when I asked her why, the answer was one word. Negative gearing.
She's never voted Coalition since. That was the one time. But if property tax fear can reach into Labor's own base and turn a lifelong believer against the party she'd backed her whole life — nobody is safe from it.
So here's what I can't understand.
Labor now sits in a position of real strength. They hold one of the strongest parliamentary positions the party has enjoyed in decades. If ever there were a time to attempt difficult reform, this would appear to be it. They've got clear air, a divided opposition, and a public that has — for now — given them the benefit of the doubt.
And calls for changes to capital gains tax concessions continue to appear in housing policy debates.
Let me be fair about the policy itself, because it matters.
There's a genuinely reasonable reform sitting in this space. Keep the capital gains tax discount on newly built properties — to encourage construction, to add supply. Remove it on existing properties, where the concession does nothing but let investors outbid first home buyers for stock that already exists.
Advocates argue this could improve housing affordability and direct investment toward new housing supply. That's not a fringe view. There are credible people on both sides of politics who think it makes sense.
On the merits, it's defensible.
But the moment any Labor government goes anywhere near capital gains tax, the politics swallows the policy whole. It doesn't matter how carefully the new builds are carved out. It doesn't matter how many economists nod along. Voters hear the same message they heard in 2019 — and every homeowner feels the same flicker of unease.
Labor, of all parties, should know this better than anyone alive. They have the scar. They paid for it with the most winnable election in a generation.
And yet here we are. A government in a commanding political position, apparently contemplating a walk back onto the exact landmine that blew up the last bloke who tried.
Whatever you think of Bill Shorten, he had the decency to take it to an election. He put negative gearing and capital gains tax in front of the people, in black and white, before they voted. He told them exactly what he intended to do and asked for a mandate to do it. They said no.
At least they were asked.
Whether you support the reform or oppose it, there is a legitimate question about mandate. If a government intends to revisit it, many Australians would reasonably expect the same opportunity to judge it at an election.
Doing it any other way assumes the answer has changed without first asking the question again.
I know which way history is betting.
The last time a betting company was this confident about Labor and property tax, they paid out early.
And lost.
