REIA CGT rent scare campaign is ‘bunkum’

Hugh’s February 2026 AFR column was blunt: vested interests are not on Team Australia. They are on Team Self-Interest. The REIA campaign against scaling back the capital gains tax discount was, in his word, bunkum.

The policy point is more careful than the headline. Jim Chalmers cannot repeat Bill Shorten’s mistakes. Capital gains reforms have to be paired with less spending and going bigger on tax cuts for workers. A scare campaign about rents is not an argument. It is a veto dressed as analysis.

Read the original column in the AFR.

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