George Brandis (Queensland, Liberal Party, Attorney-General) Share this | Hansard source

Senator McLucas, we understand that Australian homeowners want to see the value of their asset protected. As I said in answer to your principal question, the family home is the principal asset that most Australians will acquire in their lifetimes. We accept there are challenges to do with housing affordability. Of course there are. But the solution is not to deflate the value of the principal asset that most Australians own. That is not the way to go about it.

There are various strategies to address this problem. One of them, as I said before, is the release of more land for development. Senator McLucas, we are not going to pursue the harebrained policy that your leader has been contemplating lately of interfering with negative gearing arrangements in any way that will reduce the cost of an asset while increasing the rental cost.