Greens support ACTU call to scrap investor tax perks, fuel taxes

The Australian Greens are welcoming the Australian Council of Trade Unions’ move to lobby for adjustments to housing, wealth and fuel taxes ahead of the Economic Reform Roundtable.

As previously reported by Accounting Times, the ACTU flagged that it would push for new wealth taxes, caps on fuel tax credits and housing tax reform at this month’s economic roundtable.

ACTU proposed that this be achieved with the restriction of negative gearing and the capital gains tax discount to a single investment property, as they “incentivised unproductive investments”.

In addition to this, the ACTU said it would call for a 25 per cent export levy on liquified natural gas and coal exports, which was also supported by the Greens as “fossil fuel exporters reaped vast profits while paying minimal tax here and sending those profits offshore”.

The Greens noted it had taken policies for changes to the CGT discount and negative gearing to successive elections and had announced to wind back the “generous concessions” to property investors that supercharged house prices.

“Under the Greens election policy, both negative gearing and the CGT discount would be grandfathered to one existing investment property and removed on all second and subsequent properties, ensuring “mum and dad” investors with a single investment property are not negatively impacted, while disincentivising future speculative and unproductive investment in the property market,” the party said.

Larissa Waters, Greens leader and spokesperson on climate and energy, said people and nature should be the beneficiaries of the economic roundtable and that the profits of large companies should be in the “government’s sights”.

“We can’t fix the housing crisis unless we scrap massive tax discounts that give property investors a leg up while locking first homebuyers out of the market. It’s absolutely imperative that changes to negative gearing and CGT concessions are on the economic roundtable agenda,” she said.

“Young Australians shouldn’t be locked out of home ownership while a small cohort of investors get an unfair tax advantage. Nurses and teachers and community workers already pay more tax than oil and gas companies. That simply isn’t fair, especially when those industries’ emissions are driving more extreme weather events that we all suffer through.”

This push was furthered by research conducted by The Australia Institute, which found that ACTU’s call for a 25 per cent tax on revenue from gas exports would raise around $12.5 billion annually – enough to triple the Australian government’s housing expenditure.

Richard Denniss, executive director of The Australia Institute, said the introduction of a gas export tax would incentivise gas companies to supply more gas to the Australian market, which would bring down the gas and electricity prices for households and businesses.

Barbara Pocock, Greens housing spokesperson, said if the government genuinely wanted to fix the housing crisis, scrapping the CGT discount and negative gearing was “an essential and long overdue reform”.

“Let’s be clear – this is a tax break for wealthy property investors, a tax break which comes at a cost to first home buyers and owner occupiers. This is also a tax break that increases levels of homelessness, which have increased by 10 per cent under this government since it was elected in 2022.”

“Massive tax breaks for wealthy property investors are cooking our housing system. Instead of everyone having a roof over their head, houses have become an investment asset class – which fuels intergenerational inequality.”

“Instead of funding tax breaks for rich property investors, this government could be redirecting funds to building more public and affordable housing.”