How uproar over Albo’s Tourette’s remark allowed the PM to dodge a key question about a new tax that would hit millions of Aussies

Anthony Albanese’s slur on people with Tourette syndrome overshadowed how he failed to very clearly rule out introducing a new tax on the family home.

The Prime Minister gave a long-winded, parliamentary diatribe on Tuesday afternoon after shadow treasurer Angus Taylor asked if Labor had any plans to tax owner-occupier properties. 

‘Does the Prime Minister rule out any changes to the tax treatment of the owner-occupied family home and to negative gearing?’ Mr Taylor asked. 

But Mr Albanese simply ridiculed the Opposition with sarcasm rather than explicitly ruling out introducing a capital gains tax on the family home – which is exempt under existing laws.

‘I’m actually asked about a new element now. Apparently now we’re going after the family home,’ the prime minister replied. 

‘We’re going after the family home! 

‘According to them, we’re going to go in, and there’ll be a knock on the door and we’ll go: “We’re the government. We’re here to take your home from you. We’re going to nationalise the home”.’

Things got really heated when Mr Taylor asked him to rule out taxing the family home with a point of order.

‘It was a very straightforward question. It wasn’t about the Opposition. It was about the government’s proposal – their secret tax on the family home,’ he said.

Speaker Milton Dick then directed Mr Albanese to answer the question, only for him to use Tourette syndrome as a slur to insult Mr Taylor.

‘Have you got Tourette’s or something? You sit there, “babble, babble, babble”,’ he said, before immediately apologising and withdrawing the comment. 

Amid the Question Time uproar, Mr Albanese accused the Opposition of asking about policies that Labor hadn’t announced – belatedly confirming the government had no plans to introduce a capital gains tax on the family home.

But it took the PM three minutes, from the time of Mr Taylor’s initial question on the family home, for him to explain that it wasn’t part of Labor’s plan. 

‘We have all of our tax policies out there, and all of the ones that they want to talk about are things that we are not doing,’ he said.

Along the way, Mr Albanese had implied the Opposition was engaged in a ‘fishing expedition’ and sarcastically suggested the Agriculture and Fisheries Minister Julie Collins answer the question about the family home.

The family home, or someone’s principal place of residence, has been exempt from the capital gains tax since it was introduced in September 1985. 

This meant only investors paid the capital gains tax.

Labor lost the 2016 and 2019 elections by vowing to scrap negative gearing for future purchases of existing investment properties, and limit it to newly-built homes.

 The family home, or someone’s principal place of residence, has been exempt from the capital gains tax since it was introduced in September 1985 (pictured, an auction in Sydney)

In Opposition, Labor had also campaigned to slash the 50 per cent capital gains tax discount introduced in September 1999.

A 25 per cent capital gains tax discount would have required investors to declare 75 per cent of capital growth on their tax return instead of 50 per cent.

But former Labor leader Bill Shorten hadn’t proposed to introduce a capital gains tax on the family home.

Existing laws mean an older couple who bought their family home in the late 1980s are spared from having to pay capital gains tax when they sell.

But a younger investor who bought a house at Logan, south of Brisbane, would have to pay capital gains tax if they sold a property that had doubled in value during the past five years.

Mr Albanese gave a long-winded, parliamentary diatribe after shadow treasurer Angus Taylor (pictured) asked him if Labor had plans to tax owner-occupier properties

Younger property buyers, locked out of Sydney’s house market, had been investing in more affordable markets like Brisbane, Adelaide and Perth, where prices have surged by double-digit figures during the past year despite the Reserve Bank’s 13 interest rate rises in 2022 and 2023.

A Westpac-Melbourne Institute survey of 1,200 people in early October found 70 to 75 per cent of respondents were expecting house prices to rise in New South Wales, Queensland and Western Australia.

Treasurer Jim Chalmers last month confirmed he had asked his department to model the economic effects of changing negative gearing rules so a cap could hypothetically be applied on the number of properties an investor landlord could get a tax break on.

Investors can claim rental losses on their annual tax return under negative gearing.