When Richard Marles fronted reporters at Parliament House on Wednesday to announce the sell-off of more than 60 major properties owned by the Defence department, an obvious question was whether the sites would be used for new housing construction.

Barracks, airfields, warehouses, and a huge suburb-in-waiting at Maribyrnong, in Melbourne’s west, are all set to be sold. The former munitions site is expected to fit as many as 6,000 new homes once costly remediation works are finally completed.

Insisting the planned sales were about maintaining defence capability and avoiding costly upkeep, Marles said maximum financial value, and not housing, was the main aim of the project.

For a day or two it felt like Labor – ascendant and dominant against the rabble of the Liberals and Nationals in parliament this week – was missing a trick on the political issue of our time.

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But, not far from the press conference, discussions were happening out of sight. For the first time, Labor was quietly admitting that it was contemplating changing the rules for the capital gains tax discount, one of the major contributors to Australia’s red-hot property price growth.

Labor should have the courage to scale back the generous tax concession in the May budget, setting itself up for a political win and delivering meaningful tax reform. Such a change would also help would-be homebuyers, assist with badly needed revenue and wedge the Liberals and Nationals on the way through.

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