New poll says voters want housing supply over negative gearing changes, as Labor backs off reform

As featured on ABC news written by Tom Crowley

Polling by a Labor-linked firm shows less than half of voters back the idea of restricting negative gearing, as the federal government gives its strongest indication it will not attempt to reform the policy.

A survey of 1,000 people provided to the ABC and conducted by the firm Talbot Mills, which has previously done work for federal Labor and NZ Labour, shows there is fair support for changes to negative gearing and the capital gains tax discount, which can in combination give a substantial tax benefit to property investors.

But both ideas were less popular than policies to release more land for development and to give more money to first home buyers.

Asked their views on a range of measures to "address housing affordability," roughly half of the respondents favoured a "limit" on negative gearing, with a quarter opposed and a quarter unsure.

Halving the capital gains tax from 50 per cent to 25 per cent, which Labor also proposed in previous elections, was popular with 57 per cent of voters and opposed by 22 per cent.

Encouraging local and state governments to release more land for development was favoured by 68 per cent of voters and first home buyer support favoured by 73 per cent.

"While still not far off achieving majority support, limiting negative gearing appears to be a somewhat less appealing approach," David Talbot of Talbot Mills said.

"There's a strong appetite to address the supply issues constraining the housing market."

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Treasurer Jim Chalmers last month left the door open to revisiting the tax reform rejected by voters in 2016 and 2019, after Nine newspapers reported the Treasury had been asked to draft options.