The Turnbull Government’s Bennelong by-election candidate John Alexander is defending negative gearing after spending the past two years denouncing tax breaks for housing investors.
The Liberal candidate for the northern Sydney electorate, which has Australia’s highest Chinese population, says Labor’s plan to stop housing investors from writing off rental-income losses will cause a real estate price crash.
‘We’ve had the biggest uplift in property prices of anywhere in Australia – 74 per cent in three years,’ he told the ABC’s 7.30 program on Wednesday.
‘Therefore if you get rid of negative gearing, we will have the biggest crash.’
John Alexander’s campaign is no lazy Susan as he wheels out the charm to the Chinese community with Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull
Mr Alexander’s about-face on negative gearing comes after a Newspoll showed a huge 11 swing against the Liberal Party, putting Labor’s star candidate Kristina Keneally on an equal 50 per cent footing with him after preferences.
Bennelong is also home to Australia’s highest proportion of Chinese voters, who make up 21 per cent of the electorate.
The seat also contains suburbs like Epping, Macquarie Park and Ryde, which are home to a large number of Chinese-owned investment apartments.
In May last year, Mr Alexander spoke out against negative gearing as the chairman and member of a parliamentary inquiry into housing affordability.
John Alexander now wants to keep negative gearing after denouncing it for two years
The Liberal Party is battling to hold the northern Sydney seat of Bennelong, several polls show
The former tennis champion blamed the controversial tax breaks for helping ‘speculative investors’ at the expense of young people wanting to buy their first home.
‘Too often it’s the… young couple who get beaten out at the auction who is then renting that very place that they were trying to buy,’ he told the ABC’s Four Corners program.
‘Negative gearing has worked very well when it has provided affordable rental properties.
‘The moment that it intrudes on the marketplace and stops young families from buying the house, that’s not ideal.’
Labor’s star candidate Kristina Keneally campaigns with Opposition Leader Bill Shorten after a Newspoll showed an 11 per cent swing to the ALP, with Chinese voters changing their minds
Mr Alexander’s new position in favour of negative gearing comes as other polls show Chinese voters switching off the Liberal Party.
Sydney Today, a major online Chinese news platform, published an item saying Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull was ‘standing at the frontline of anti-Chinese sentiment’.
Polling is understood to show more than half of Chinese-Australians in Bennelong favour Keneally over Alexander, Australian Associated Press said.
Ms Keneally claimed the prime minister was asserting ‘Chinese-Australians are to be suspicious of’.
‘The last time I heard this rhetoric was from Pauline Hanson and One Nation 20 years ago. But Malcolm Turnbull’s reviving it,’ she told reporters on Wednesday.
John Alexander faces a tight battle to retain his northern Sydney electorate of Bennelong
Mr Turnbull rejects the suggestion, saying all Australians expect their government and politicians to ‘put Australia first’.
‘Everything we do is preserving and enhancing our sovereignty,’ he says.
There is still some hope for Mr Alexander with a Fairfax Media-ReachTEL poll published on Thursday putting him ahead of Labor at 53 to 47 per cent, after preferences.
Half of surveyed voters said news of disgraced Labor senator Sam Dastyari and his Chinese connections would affect their vote in the Saturday by-election.
A third of those voters said it would make them less likely to vote Labor.