Last week’s budget has been met with absurd hysteria as vested interests, and conservative politicians and media pushed lies about the collapse of the housing market and death taxes.

You can always tell when conservatives are flailing when they start arguing a policy will work but there will be (shudder) “unintended consequences”.

This week the Australian Financial Review suggested that because the changes to the capital gains discount and negative gearing would likely either lower house prices or at least slow price rises that will mean states get less stamp duty.

The AFR reported “research” from property industry company SQM Research that if the number of houses sold fell 30% “the five largest states could lose a total of $9.2 billion in stamp duty in 2026-27”.

A 30% fall in houses sold?

That would require an 80% fall in investors buying established houses and none of the gap taken up by prospective homeowners.

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It’s amazing how desperate property types are to demonstrate that the 50% CGT discount had nothing to do with housing supply and was just about investors making easy profits from buying up established houses.

Given the changes are estimated to raise $2.2bn in the budget by 2029-30, that’s a hell of a cost everyone is paying so the 7% of (mostly older) taxpayers who earn capital gains can pay a lower tax rate than the 80% of (mostly younger) taxpayers who earn a salary or........

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