Property Hub - Investment Insights & Inspiration - Get Invested: How will CGT & negative gearing reform impact housing affordability?

Episode Date: February 27, 2026

As pressure builds to scrap negative gearing and cut the CGT discount to “fix” housing affordability, Bushy Martin explains why these popular tax changes could actually push rents higher and make affordability worse. In this episode of Get Invested, Bushy moves the conversation from headline emotion to systems thinking. Instead of blaming investors or chasing political quick fixes, he breaks down what negative gearing and the CGT discount actually do - in plain English - and walks through the likely second-order consequences of changing them. If you’re a renter feeling locked out, a first-home buyer craving relief, or an everyday investor feeling blamed and unsure what to do next, this episode brings clarity to a heated debate. Housing isn’t a morality play - it’s a supply system. And in a shortage, anything that shrinks supply tends to make affordability worse. What You’ll Learn: What negative gearing and the CGT discount actually do Why “relief-seeking policy” can trigger lock-in, pullback and rental squeezes How tax changes may hit renters first Why waiting for a crash could be a costly mistake What a grown-up, integrated affordability solution really looks like The Bottom Line: Quick fixes can create bigger problems. Before wishing for sweeping tax reform, understand the incentives and the flow-on effects - because in housing, second-order consequences matter. Take the next step with Bushy Personal Solutions Session Get clarity and personalised guidance: Book now Property W.E.A.L.T.H Program - live now! Be first to access discounts + free Module 1: Find out more https://courses.bushymartin.com.au/property-wealth Find your Freedom Formula Success in property starts with your 'why', and then the 'what' and 'how'. Let me, Bushy Martin, lead you through it! Sign up for my Freedom Formula program. The first session is absolutely free, and it only takes around an hour! Find out more https://bushymartin.com.au/freedom-formula-course Subscribe to Property Hub for free now on your favourite podcast player. Take the next step - connect, engage and get more insights with the Property Hub community at linktr.ee/propertyhubau Get property investment and wealth resources, and book a Personal Solution Session with Bushy. All the links and info are here: linktr.ee/propertyhubau About Get Invested, a Property Hub show Get Invested is the leading weekly podcast for Australians who want to learn how to unlock their full ‘self, health and wealth’ potential. Hosted by Bushy Martin, an award winning property investor, founder, author and media commentator who is recognised as one of Australia’s most trusted experts in property, investment and lifestyle, Get Invested reveals the secrets of the high performers who invest for success in every aspect of their lives and the world around them. Subscribe now on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and YouTube to get every Get Invested episode each week for free. For business enquiries, email [e-mail] omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Welcome friend fighters. Let me ask you a genuinely dangerous question. What if the housing affordability quick fix that Australia keeps begging for is the very thing that will make housing less affordable? Because right now, every time inflation flares, rates rise and people feel squeezed, the same headline keeps screaming back. Slash the CGT discount. Scrap negative gearing. Tax the investors. It sounds clean. It sounds fair. It even sounds like justice. And it might even feel like we've finally found the villain to pin the tail on.

But what if that villain story's wrong? What if the real housing affordability problem isn't tax at all, but supply system that's been quietly strangled for decades? And what if tinkering with tax doesn't fix housing, it just shifts the pain from one group of Aussies to another while the shortage just keeps growing. Because here's the kicker. There's one reform idea being thrown around right now

that would actually cause a surge in prices before it fixes anything. Yep, a so-called cooling policy that heats the market first. And once you understand why, you'll never read another headline the same way again. So if you've ever thought, just change the tax settings and homes will get cheaper, or just cut immigration and house prices

will fall, then stay with me. Because by the end of this episode, you'll know exactly what will happen next, who really wins, who gets blindsided, and why this debate keeps circling back like a bad boomerang and repeatedly smacking us in the back of the head. Because we all need to be very, very careful what we wish for. And this episode will finally clear the murky waters and misleading misunderstandings surrounding this complex issue. So save it, share it and send the link to your local politician because they need to hear this too. Now stay tuned, let's unpack it and let's get invested. Welcome to Get Invested on the Property Hub podcast channel, the leading weekly show for Australians who want to learn how to unlock their full self, health and wealth

potential. I'm your host, Bushy Martin, and each week I go deep with the best investors, experts, leaders and founders to find out what it takes to break free from the grind, discover freedom and to live by design. Subscribe now and join me and get invested in the life that you really want. Let's get started. Hi Freedom Fighters. I want you to picture something. You're 29. You've saved hard. You've skipped holidays. You're renting. And you've watched property prices move further away each and every year. You open your phone and you see another headline. Scrapped capital gains tax concessions and negative gearing to fix housing affordability. And something inside you goes,

ah finally do something that emotional reaction it's real it's human it's understandable now picture someone else you're 46 you've worked hard for 25 years you bought an investment property because you don't want to rely on the pension you're not wealthy but you're leveraged you're carrying risks and you open your phone and see another headline investors to blame for housing affordability crisis. And something inside you goes, hang on. Now, both of these different reactions are valid. Both feel justified, but neither of them is the full picture. And this is where the national conversation keeps breaking down, because we argue emotion while pretending we're arguing economics. And every time inflation increases, interest rates rise,

and affordability anxiety spikes, this same old quick-fix debate re-emerges. The media screams and the pollies react. Let's slash the CGT discount and scrap negative gearing to make homes cheaper. Again, simple problem, simple villain, simple solution. Tax the investors. Dumb. It's like a bad boomerang that keeps getting thrown away

and somehow circles back and keeps smacking us right in the back of the head. Like a recurring fever that never quite clears. And here's what bothers me. The conversation rarely goes deeper than investors are driving up prices, remove incentives, problem solved. Well, that's not analysis. That's reactive relief-seeking. And relief-seeking policy is how you accidentally create bigger problems.

And here's what fascinates me. The volume of debate is inversely proportional to the depth of understanding The louder it gets, the shallower it gets So I've stayed quiet I've listened I've let the media panels and the comment sections and the armchair economists all have their run Because eventually the heat settles And then we can talk about what actually matters

Because I'm not here to win an argument I'm here to bring calm, clarity and consequence to a very noisy conversation. Because when policy debates touch people's homes, people's rents and people's futures, they deserve more than slogans. Not ideology, not villain hunting, but systems. And more of the what happens next questions that need to follow. Because housing is not a morality play. It's a supply system.

And systems don't respond to outrage. They respond to incentives. So before we touch a single tax setting, we need to address the psychology. Because this isn't really about tax. It's about blame. Because humans need villains. When something feels unfair, we look for a face.

Like the banks, the boomers, the landlords, foreign buyers, developers. We seem to rotate through them like a casting call. And right now, property investors are right back in the firing line. But here's the uncomfortable truth. Most property investors in Australia own just one property. Just one. They're nurses, police officers, public servants, tradies, small business owners and your neighbour. They're not the idle witch sitting in Monaco on the penthouse balcony sipping Dom Perignon while striking a white cat.

They're hard-working Aussies like you and me who are just trying to protect their family's future and self-fund their retirement so they don't have to rely on the government pension. And yet, when affordability becomes painful, that is, politically painful and socially painful, we reach for the nearest donkey and pin the tail on it. It's neat, it's emotional, but it's incomplete. So today, we're not going to skim this.

We're going to sit with it, properly. Because this isn't about defending investors, it's about defending logic. So let me ask you something uncomfortable. If scrapping negative gearing and slashing the CGD discount truly fixed affordability, why hasn't any government that's had the chance pulled the trigger yet? And don't tell me it's lack of courage. Governments change Medicare. They change super.

They change stage three tax cuts. They change migration caps. If something truly solved a crisis, they'd sell it hard. So why is this one always floated but rarely executed? That question is more important than the headline. Now, here's the deeper layer. Australia has a housing shortage. Not a tax shortage, a housing shortage.

For decades, since the government stopped providing public housing in the 1970s, and made it purely a private sector provision problem, we've massively underbuilt relative to population growth in key areas. And because the private sector must be confident that they're going to cover their costs and make money before they commit big money to new housing, understandably, we've got a just-after-time approach to housing as opposed to the Japanese just-in-time approach.

Then add in the layer upon layer of our three tiers of federal, state and local government intervention, And we compound the housing supply problem with things like planning bottlenecks, infrastructure lag, NIMBY constraints, feasibility pressures, construction cost blowouts and developer margin squeezes. And yet every time house prices surge, we reach for the tax lever. Why? Because tax reform is a federal lever and supply reform is messy. It involves states, councils, approvals, land release, infrastructure coordination, so it's slow, and it's politically complex, and it doesn't produce quick headlines. But tax reform produces headlines, like crackdown, reform, action. But supply reform produces paperwork, so guess which one media cycles actually prefer?

now in a minute i'm going to name the third lever that never gets a headline but quietly decides whether your wages rise and whether housing becomes easier or harder to afford it's not tax it's not migration it's productivity and when you finally see what productivity really is you'll never hear that word the same way again now let's talk wealth because this is where the room gets quiet. And this is where it gets slightly uncomfortable. Because I want you to think about this clearly. Roughly two-thirds of Australians own their own home. Millions more have superannuation exposure to property inequities that are influenced by property cycles. And over half of all our household wealth in this country actually sits in housing.

not just investment housing, all housing, our homes, our family homes, our balance sheets that give us all that sense of shelter and security but also our psychological safety and according to ABS balance sheet data residential property typically represents somewhere between 55 to 60 percent of total household assets. So when politicians casually say let's make housing more affordable by making house prices fall dramatically. What they're actually saying is let's reduce the value of the primary asset on millions of balance sheets for just about every Australian family. Now that's not just an investor issue that's a national wealth effect issue. So when you talk casually about bringing house prices down sharply to

improve affordability, you're talking about shrinking the wealth of millions of hard-working Aussies. So do we really understand what that means? Consumer confidence drops, spending drops, small business turnover drops, construction slows and employment softens because our wealth effect is real and powerful and governments know this, which is why they talk loudly but legislate cautiously, if at all. If house values fell sharply, Aussies wouldn't just shrug, they'd pull back. And when households pull back, economies slow. That's not theory, that's behavioural economics. Now, here's where he gets politically honest. In 2019, negative yearning and CGT reform were taken to an election. The result? An absolute voter backlash. Why?

because millions of Australians felt exposed. Not just investors, but homeowners and small business operators whose equity underpins borrowing and self-funded retirees and superannuation holders whose funds hold property-linked assets. When people believe their primary asset may fall in value, they vote. And governments know this.

So tax reform in this space isn't niche. It's system-wide. And systems react. So every time this property tax debate resurfaces, I ask just one simple question. Is this serious reform or is this just signalling? Because signalling can cool demand without passing a single law. So just signal openness to reform, float the idea, leak discussion papers, let the headlines cool demand and watch nervous buyers pause. then quietly do very little if anything and just move on. That's political theatre with economic

consequences. But let me be crystal clear here. Affordability pain is real. Renters are hurting and first-home buyers feel like the ladder's being pulled up and they're locked out. That's genuine generational frustration. I'm not dismissing it but scapegoating is not the same as solving. Blaming private investors for a structural supply shortage is like blaming the smoke alarm for the fire. It's visible, it's noisy, but it's not the source. It just confuses symptom with cause and that confusion is where policy mistakes are actually born. And unless we understand that difference, we risk making the fire worse while congratulating ourselves for silencing the alarm. And I want you to remember that image, smoke alarm versus fire, because when we land

the episode later, you'll see why confusing those two is how good intentions accidentally make things worse. So be careful what you wish for. And if we look back through history, we see that Australia has been wrestling with housing affordability tension right back since the first fleet landed in Sydney Cove. Economist Cameron Murray explained in detail way back on Get Invested episodes 314 and 315 that I released back in February 2024, how land access, speculation and affordability disputes go right back to the first days of colonial settlement. So this isn't a recent problem. It's a recurring one. But what changes is the villain. And the media format. Because in our age of always-on mobile phones and 24-7 social

media platforms, algorithm-induced outrage spreads much faster and is now much louder. So tax the greedy investors fits neatly into a headline. It sparks conflict and debate. It's shareable. It's emotional. And it feels like justice. But justice and effectiveness aren't the same thing. And here's another layer that doesn't get enough oxygen. Roughly 90% of rental housing is provided by private investors, just like you and me. Not government, not institutions, but private investors who are hardworking Aussies. And ATO statistics consistently show that the vast majority of property investors own just one property. Not 10, not 20, just one. So this isn't are doing their class debate. It's middle Australia trying to build future independence.

And that context matters. So when you adjust their after-tax return, you adjust rental supply behaviour. And that doesn't show up tomorrow, because supply behaviour is slow to respond. It doesn't collapse overnight. It quietly contracts. It shows up quietly over years, in projects that don't commence, in developments that stall, and investors who redirect their capital elsewhere. Which means fewer new dwellings, and renters feel at first. Always. Because in a shortage, anything that shrinks supply makes affordability worse. That's not ideology, that's arithmetic. And this is where good intentions can go to war with real world outcomes. So before anyone starts cheering for a policy that sounds like justice,

be very careful what you wish for. And here's something even less comfortable. A significant proportion of recent employment growth in this country has been government funded with a well-known economist indicating up to 69%. So around seven out of 10 new jobs have been government-funded over the last couple of years, which supports demand, which sustains spending, which keeps inflation sticky, which keeps interest rates elevated, which then reignites affordability anxiety. And somehow we circle back to taxing investors as the headline fix.

It's like turning the heater to 30 and then writing an angry letter blaming the thermostat for the power bill. It makes you feel proactive, but it doesn't lower the bill. So it's emotionally convenient, but economically shallow. So before we even touch how CGT works, or what negative gearing actually is, I want you to sit with this. Are investors really the villain? Or are they just the visible edge of a much larger policy, supply, demand and political system?

because if we misdiagnose the system we'll prescribe the wrong medicine and the side effects may actually be far worse than the original symptom. So if we get this wrong everything that follows gets distorted and distorted policy creates unintended consequences. Now let's slow it right down and explain the tax mechanics properly because once you understand how they actually function the villain narrative starts to wobble and doesn't make sense and the unintended consequences become impossible to ignore.

But before we get into the mechanics let's do a quick myth-busting run because if we don't clear the fog first every explanation sounds like we're arguing sides but we're not. We're arguing reality and here's my request. If you know someone who keeps saying

mate, just scrap CGT and negative gearing and it's going to fix everything, send them this episode. Not to win, not to dunk on them, just to upgrade the conversation. And to keep it serious, email or text the link to this episode to your local MP as well. Because if politicians only hear one side of the story, we get policy built for headlines, not outcomes. All right, myth-busting time.

And I'm going to do it like a convo over coffee, not like I'm reciting some sort of a treachery memo. No. The first myth, negative gearing's a handout. No. It's not Centrelink to landlords. Negative gearing is simply the ability to deduct a real loss of a property against your taxable income, which is the same as any small business. So if a cafe loses money, it deducts a loss. If a tradie buys tools and has a lean year, those costs are deductible. And property sits and exactly the same tax framework. Now, you can argue whether that framework should be different for housing.

Fair debate. But calling it a handout is like calling your tax return a government gift. It's your money. You just overpay during the year. So the language matters because the language shapes the anger. The second myth, if investors didn't exist, renters would all just buy. That's like saying if taxis disappeared, everyone would magically own a car. Some would, many can't.

And renters are renters for all sorts of reasons. Deposit gap, income instability, new to town, divorced, casual work, students, short-term life transitions. So if tax policy shrinks rental supply, renters don't automatically teleport into ownership. They just compete harder for fewer rentals And when rentals get scarce, competition sets the rent, not political kindness The third myth, investors are mostly rich Well, a very small portion are But the vast majority are hard-working Aussies and or mum and dad investors with one property

Not a portfolio empire, and they're not doing it because they're evil They're doing it because they don't want to be the government's future pension problem. Which is where the whole debate gets pretty ironic. We tell people, don't rely on the pension. Then when we try not to, we call them villains. That's like telling someone to bring a plate to the barbecue, then slapping it out of their hands because you just don't like what they cooked. The fourth myth, if we change tax settings, house prices will fall dramatically.

click. Now, most serious modelling confirms price impacts are very modest and very short-term temporary. Think low single digits like 1% to 2%, not 30%. Why? Because tax tweaks don't create houses. They mostly just change who owns the existing ones. You don't solve a seat shortage by changing the ticket rules. You actually need to add seats. The fifth myth, okay, but at least first-time buyers win? Well, no, not automatically, because here's the trap. If renters pay higher rent because rental supply shrinks, saving for a house deposit gets harder. So even if prices soften slightly temporarily, the pathway to ownership actually gets worse. And that's all part of the balloon effect. Squeeze one end with tax changes and it pops out the other in higher

rent higher prices and worse affordability and renters feel at first always now with that fault cleared let's do the mechanics properly because once you understand what these things actually are you start hearing headlines very differently you'll start noticing when people are selling emotion instead of explaining consequence and before we go deeper a quick reminder everything I'm sharing today is general information only. It's not financial, tax, legal or accounting advice. I don't know your personal numbers, goals or risk tolerance and those details really matter. So before you act on anything, have a proper conversation with your licensed professionals and get advice tailored to you and your circumstance. That said, let's keep

going. So let's start with negative gearing. Imagine you buy an investment property. You get rent. But you also have expenses, interest on the loan, council rates, insurance, repairs, property management fees. And if your rent doesn't fully cover those costs, you make a loss each and every year. And to soften the pain, the loss can be deducted against your taxable income, which is negative gearing. Now, let's put numbers on it, and we'll keep it simple. Say your rent is $600 a week. That's about $31,000 a year. Now say your loan interest, rates, insurance, maintenance and fees add up to about $40,000 a year.

Well, you've made a real loss of about $9,000 for the year and for most of the years that you hold the property. With the future property and the hope and risk that the property increases in value so that you make some money at the end to make the long-term financial pain worth all the effort. So negative gearing means that the $9,000 a year loss can reduce your taxable income. So if you're on a marginal tax rate around 37% plus Medicare, you might get roughly a third of that loss in tax.

Not all of it, just a portion. So you're still out of pocket. You're still losing money year on year. And here's the point that gets missed. Negative gearing doesn't make a bad investment good. It just makes a loss slightly less painful while you wait for the long game. It's like wearing gloves in winter. Your hands still get cold, you just don't lose your fingers.

Now let's turn to capital gains tax. If you sell an asset for more than you paid for it, you pay tax on the gain. And if you hold your property for more than 12 months, individuals get a 50% discount on the taxable gain. So if you make a $100,000 gain, only $50,000 of it is added to your taxable income. That's the CGT discount. It was introduced in 1999, replacing an older indexation system, which is an important nuance,

because the debate often pretends that we invented the concept of tax relief for long-term holding out of thin air. But we didn't. We just changed the method. And here's the bit that the public debate often skips. These two settings are part of the same behavioural chain. Negative gearing often supports investors during the early years when cash flow is tight. Then the CGT discount rewards them if the asset is held long term and appreciates.

So if you change either setting, you change behaviour. And behaviour changes supply. And supply changes affordability. And that's the loop. so now let's go one layer deeper because here's what the just change the tax crowd really says if you reduce after tax returns some investors don't just accept it and carry on they do what humans do they adapt and adaptation has two big forms firstly lock in and secondly pull back Perhaps you've heard those words in the media,

but I want you to feel what they mean, because once you feel them, you'll never unsee the consequences. So lock-in is simple. If selling gets taxed harder, we sell less and less often. It's like putting a toll on the exit door and then wondering why nobody leaves. So what happens? Fewer properties for sale, less choice, more competition,

tougher negotiations, higher prices, and surprise, surprise, worsening affordability. Go! And here's the key. Less selling doesn't mean cheaper. Less selling generally means tighter, so less affordable, not more. Then there's pullback. Pullback is the old shoulder shrug, the yeah and ah, the too hard basket. If you lower after-tax returns, many investors will redirect their capital elsewhere, not because they hate renters, but because they're trying to build a future and risk-adjusted returns matter.

So what happens then? Fewer investor-funded rentals, fewer new builds getting up, less supply coming through the pipeline, and again, renters feel it first, always. because renters are living in the present tense while housing supply moves in the future tense. And housing isn't a light switch, it's a slow cooker. So if we tamper with the incentives that quietly keep rental supply showing up, the pain doesn't hit Parliament first, it hits tenants first. And that's why, again, you need to be very careful what you wish for.

Now, here's where I'm going to open a loop because it matters for the rest of the episode. There's a version of reform that's more surgical than a sledgehammer. And there's a version that could backfire spectacularly. And in a minute, I'm going to walk you through three common tax change proposal types and exactly what happens next in each case, including why one of them can actually cause a surge in prices.

Yeah, a reform designed at cool prices can heat them first. And once you see why, you'll start reading headlines like you've got x-ray glasses. And we'll go there next. But first, I want you to notice something. The debate always comes back to investors versus burst home buyers. It's framed like a boxing match. But housing isn't a boxing match. It's an ecosystem.

So when you punch one corner of the ecosystem, don't be surprised when something else limps. All right, let's walk through the current tax chain proposal menu and the what happens next change. Because the media debate often sounds like just change the tax settings. There are actually a few different levers being floated and the consequences aren't identical. So let's make them one at a time. And I want you to imagine we're playing chess here. Every move figures another move. So Tax Change Proposal 1 is to reduce the CGT discount from 50% to 25%.

This sounds simple. Investors pay more tax on profit. On the surface, it can feel fair. But what happens next? The first reaction? Some investors would rush to sell before the change comes in. So yes, you get a temporary surge in listings, which can actually soften prices briefly short term.

So the reform designed to cool prices can initially heat activity and distort timing. Then after implementation, you get the big lock-in, because once the higher tax rate applies, property owners will hold longer. Why sell and hand over more tax if you can just sit tight? So again, fewer resales, which means less churn, less mobility. And here's the bit no one talks about. Resales fund new builds. Equity recycling is how a lot of housing supply gets financed

So if turnover drops, future supply slows And that's not ideology, that's capital flow mechanics Now let's layer in the evidence When New Zealand removed interest deductibility for many investors in 2021 and tightened investor settings, rents rose sharply over the following period Vacancy tightened and developers pulled back And then, surprise, surprise, the government eventually had to do a partial U-turn reversal because behaviour adapted faster than the modelling predicted. So government policy can be correct in theory, but very messy in execution because humans react. Always.

Let's now turn to tax change proposal number two, to limit negative gearing to new builds only. Now, this one sounds clever. The headline reads, incentivize supply. And I actually think that this is the most rational version of reform on the table if reform is going to happen. But here's the nuance. If you restrict negative gearing to new builds only, you risk creating a two-speed property environment

where investors crowd into new builds for tax treatment, but established stock becomes less attractive. So developers respond to investor demand rather than owner-occupied demand. which means you end up with pockets of oversupply of the wrong type of housing in the wrong locations and undersupply of the right types of property in the right ones. Now we saw echoes of this in the past during apartment construction booms when incentives aligned one way and demand shifted accordingly. So incentives don't just change volume, they change geography.

Now this version is still more supply aligned than blanket removal but it's not magic. It still requires planning reform, infrastructure sequencing and construction feasibility to work properly because without those it's like offering free gym memberships in a town that's got no gym. Now let's consider tax policy change proposal three where the government caps the amount of negative gearing losses. So let's say you can only claim $10,000 a year. Above that, too bad. Now think this through. Who does that hurt most? The investor with one modest property or the investor who stretched hardest into higher leverage during higher rate environments? Because caps tend to hit new entrants and highly leveraged entrants

the hardest, which again can shrink supply behaviour. And here's the quiet consequence. Higher perceived risk means higher required return. Higher required return means investors demand higher rent to justify the risk. And property markets always price in risk. They don't hold hands and say, it's okay, we'll absorb that for you. Markets are polite, but they're not kind. They don't absorb it politely. So surprise, surprise, rents and property values are likely to rise,

and good old affordability just gets worse. Bugger! Now, that's the question hardly anyone asks in these debates. Not, how does this feel? But, what happens next? So, keep that phrase in your pocket, because I'm going to come back to it. Now there's Tax Policy Change Proposal 4.

Remove negative gearing entirely to future purchasers. Now, this is the nuclear option. Now, I want you to imagine you're a potential investor. You're looking at property versus shares versus commercial versus private equity versus term deposits. You then remove deductibility from one asset class, property, and tis then. Investor capital reallocates. It doesn't protest. It just moves.

But residential construction relies heavily on private investor capital. So if you shrink that capital pool, the new build pipelines fill it. And in a shortage, less supply equals more pressure. And more pressure means affordability gets worse. Again, that's arithmetic, not ideology. But here's the bigger point. Every proposal that targets existing property risks lock-in.

And every proposal that shrinks after tax return risks pull-back. and lock-in plus pull-back equals tighter markets. And tighter property markets don't produce affordability miracles. They produce scarcity premiums. So if someone promises you a simple tax tweak that's going to magically make housing cheap, just remember this sentence. Because in a scarcity market,

you can get the opposite of what you hope for. So be very careful what you wish for. and while I'm on the subject don't forget that housing is scarcity that's what gives it its value for property investors we invest in scarcity and here's a slightly cheeky observation when the media runs constant affordability crisis headlines that's actually a signal that scarcity is intensifying and scarcity is why property values grow long term it's uncomfortable socially, but it's powerful financially. And those two truths can coexist. Now, let's touch on the Irish experiment. Back in Ireland, introduced measures aimed at cooling

property and investor activity after its financial crisis. And what happened? Institutional investors feel the gap. We're talking large funds with scale capital, with a very different risk appetite, and different pricing behaviour, which made affordability a lot worse. So be careful what you wish for. If you shrink mum and dad participation, don't assume housing becomes a utopia. Because capital doesn't disappear, it consolidates. And consolidated capital isn't always softer. Often it's sharper and costs more.

So when you try and squeeze mum and dad investors out of the system, you don't get a fairer system you get a harder one which circles back to you guessed it be careful what you wish for now let's come back home why does this tax change debate never quite land because governments know the voter mass roughly two-thirds of australians own their home millions more on investment property millions more have super exposure to property linked assets So if you materially shrink housing wealth, you shrink voter comfort. And voter discomfort costs elections. That's not cynical, that's democracy.

So instead, we'd get political signalling. Talk tough, float reform, cool demand, and watch the horses steady. And then do generally nothing. Because governments rarely detonate the wealth engine of their own electorate unless they're into Harry Caray. And here's the uncomfortable twist. Sometimes just talking about reform is enough to cool behaviour. If buyers hesitate because they fear change,

demand slides without legislation, which means policy discussion alone can move property settlement. And that's why you need to be very careful about waiting it out, because property values generally move long before the law does. And the new law often just never comes. now let's zoom out again because the real problem isn't tax it's the imbalance between population growth and housing delivery construction cost inflation planning bottlenecks infrastructure lag school shortages and land release friction so tax is a lever but supply is the engine

and we keep debating the lever while the engine load heats it's like arguing about the paint color or the car has no fuel and unless we understand that properly we'll keep throwing boomerangs and wondering why our head hurts now before we pivot into what investors should actually do and not do i want to go one layer deeper because there's another headline boomerang that gets thrown every single time just reduce immigration and affordability fixes itself sounds neat sounds tidy it sounds like a single lever but again housing isn't a light switch and the economy isn't a bathtub so if we shrink migration in an aging country with productivity pressure the consequences ripple way beyond housing and they're not pretty so stay with me because this

is where the conversation finally gets really adult the cut immigration and housing pressure disappears argument sounds logical. Pure people, less demand, problem solved. Except that you can't shrink your way to prosperity. Just like you can't diet by skipping dinner once and expecting long term health. Because quick cuts don't build sustainable strength. And you definitely can't shrink your way to affordability in an ageing economy. Because here's the reality. Australia's population is rapidly ageing. We have a rising proportion of retirees and a shrinking proportion of working age taxpayers relative to them. And that matters a lot because retirees draw on health care, aged care, public services and pensions. And those services are funded by the

people currently working. Treasury's intergenerational reports have repeatedly warned the ratio of working-age Australians to retirees is falling. So fewer workers supporting more retirees, which means shrinking migration shrinks the tax base at the exact time we need productivity growth. So housing doesn't sit outside that equation, it sits inside it. If you reduce migration dramatically, you reduce working-age population growth,

which reduces the tax base, which increases the fiscal burden per worker, which reduces economic dynamism, which shrinks productivity potential. And when productivity slows, wages stagnate. And when wages stagnate, affordability gets worse. Can you see the chain here? Housing demand is not just population numbers. It's income growth, it's employment strength it's economic confidence and it's capital formation so when people say just stop immigration they're treating housing like a bathtub just turn the tap off and the water level drops but the economy is not a bathtub it's a circulatory system you slow the blood flow and the whole body feels it and here's the irony migrants don't just add demand they add labor

They had skills, they built houses, they lay bricks, they drive infrastructure, and they expand supply capacity. Now, Canada's the perfect real-world case study here, because they basically run the turn-the-tap-down experiment in real time. Over the last couple of years, as housing pressure and public anxiety rose, Canada just didn't talk tough, they actually moved. They capped international student permits in 2024, explicitly saying rapid student growth was putting pressure on housing, health and services. And they went further. They reduced planned immigration levels and set a clear goal to bring temporary residents down to around 5% of the population over the next couple of years.

Now here's the bit economists love to point out. If you slow population growth quickly enough, You can ease rental demand pressure in some markets in the short term. So yes, turning the tap down can cool the steam in the bathroom for a bit. But now let's talk about the bill you get later. Because when you cut migration hard, you don't just cut demand, you also cut workers. And that means less labour in the very industries that you need to fix housing, like construction, trades, infrastructure and care.

It can mean skill shortages bite harder, projects take longer and productivity takes a hit And it can mean a weaker tax base at the exact time an ageing population needs more funding for hospitals, aged care and support So the danger is this, you might win a short term headline Look, pressure eased But you risk creating a longer term problem where the economy grows slower, wages grow slower and supply is still behind which is like going on a crash diet and celebrating the first weigh-in while your metabolism quietly packs its bags and leaves the building. So yes, manage migration properly.

You need to sequence it with infrastructure, lift building capacity, fix approvals but don't pretend that you can shrink your way to prosperity because the hangover can be worse than the party. So the same lever that people think increases housing pressure also increases housing production capacity, which means that cutting migration to fix housing is like firing half the builders to reduce construction costs. It feels neat, but it's backwards.

Now, does migration need management? Of course. Infrastructure must keep pace. Planning must keep pace. Services must keep pace. But shrinking away to comfort in our competitive global economy is absolute fantasy. and fantasy policy creates real-world pain. So here's where this gets personal because every generation thinks the next one has it easier

and every next generation thinks the previous one rigged the system. There's frustration and some of it's justified. There's also expectation inflation and we don't talk enough about that because it's easy to sound theoretical. It's easy to sound detached. But this stuff isn't abstract, it's very personal. When my partner in all things song and I restarted from nothing in the late 90s,

we didn't start from comfort, we started from burnt out, broken and broke. Not Instagram broke, not I need a lifestyle upgrade broke, stone broke, emotionally bruised, financial reset. And when we finally got our first place again, it certainly wasn't glamorous. It was cold, proper cold. We didn't have heating. We'd sit inside at night on our frayed old couch or our plastic garden chairs that we'd picked up at a garage sale, wrapped in blankets with our beanies on, watching our breath steam in the air like we were camping indoors.

And no TV, just a staple diet of toast, two-minute noodles and canned soup. We drove an old car that rattled so loudly we used to joke it would now say our arrival from freeze-freezer way. And here's the part that matters. We weren't miserable. We were clear. there's a difference. We didn't sit there blaming the market. We didn't sit there blaming policy. We sat there laughing at ourselves because we knew this wasn't permanent. It was a season. And seasons pass if you move forward through them. We weren't focused on where we were. We were focused on where we were going. Now, hear me carefully on this. I'm not

romanticising struggle. I'm not dismissing generational inequality. And I'm not dismissing how hard it feels right now for renters or first home buyers. Prices relative to income in many locations are generally very stretched. Deposit gaps are wider. That's real. But what hasn't changed is this. No tax reform removes the need for sacrifice. No headline removes the need for patience. No political slogan replaces the need for a plan. Every generation faces a different version of the climb. Ours was interest rates much higher than they are now. Yours is likely to be deposit compression. But the principle hasn't changed. You don't start at the top rung, you start somewhere. Maybe it's reinvesting, maybe it's regional, maybe it's smaller,

maybe it's slower. But the climb is still a climb. And here's what I worry about most in this debate. If we convince a whole generation that the system is permanently rigged against them, they stop climbing. They stop trying. They sit in resentment instead of strategy. And resentment doesn't compound. Strategy does. Because where there's a will, there's always a way. So here's the uncomfortable and generally unspoken truth. No tax reform removes the need for sacrifice. Not one. Now, before I tell you the story of the panicker versus the planner, we've got to do the bit that most commentators skip. If we're not going to throw rocks at investors

what should we actually do that works? So we can't just say that won't work we have to say what would work. Because Australia's housing conversation has become like watching someone trying to fix a switch wash with a shovel. One lever, one villain, one headline. But housing affordability isn't a single lever problem.

It's a systems imbalance problem. So here's the grown-up answer. In the short term, the midterm and the long term. Integrated and not ideological. Starting with the short term, where we need to reduce friction on the stuff that actually blocks homes. So first, speed up approvals where infrastructure's ready. Because right now, in too many places,

approvals move slower than dial-up internet in a storm. That's not a tax problem. that's a friction problem. Secondly, sequence infrastructure properly. Stop opening land like a new iPhone box without the charger. Roads, schools, water, power, transport line them up before we need them not after the traffic jam arrives.

Third, target incentives and additional dwellings not demand. Not here's more money go fight harder at auctions that's like handing out more tons of the barbecue when we're already short on sausages. If we subsidise anything, subsidise new supply in the places with critically low vacancy and real bottlenecks. And then there's the sneaky one, the lever that changes everything without anyone noticing because it's boring. But boring is where the money's made. So let me show you why this is the missing ingredient in almost every affordability debate.

as we move to the mid-term horizon where our focus needs to be on productivity and wages. And let's grab that word that gets thrown around like a wet towel in a pub on Friday night. Productivity. Because economists say it, CEOs say it, the RBA hints at it, and Treasury writes reports about it. And most everyday Aussies hear it and think,

yep, sounds important, but what's it actually mean? So let's make it plain English. In this context, productivity is basically how much value we produce for every hour we work. So output per hour. Think of it like this. If Australia's a bakery, productivity is how many good loaves we can bake per hour with the same number of bakers. If we bake more loaves without burning them, everyone can take one home cheaper and no one's fighting over the crumbs. But if we bake the same loaves but waste half the dough

because the oven's broken and the recipe changes every five minutes, prices go up and people go without. That's productivity. Not work harder, but work smarter, with less waste, less waiting, and less rework. So if productivity rises, we can afford higher wages without everything getting more expensive. If it stalls, we fight over a smaller pie and the cost of living wins.

Now, according to the ABS, Australia's labour productivity growth has averaged well under 1% per year in recent years, when historically we used to run closer to 2% during stronger reform periods. Now, that might sound like small numbers, but it's not. over a decade that difference compounds massively into wage growth business productivity business profitability and living standards so when you feel like you're running harder but not getting ahead that's not imagination that's math and here's why this all matters to housing affordability when productivity productivity is weak the economy economy can't grow cleanly so demand pushes into supply, inflation stays stickier, and interest rates stay higher for longer.

And higher rates do two nasty things. They smash borrowing capacity, and they raise investor holding costs, which puts pressure on rents and slows new supply. So you can see how it hits the average Joe twice. First, you can borrow less, so you feel blocked out. Second, the cost base goes up, so rents and bill costs stay under pressure. So when you hear productivity, translate it to, can my wages rise without my costs rising faster? Because that's the affordability game. So productivity is just getting more bang for buck from the same effort,

instead of getting more buck for bang from the same excuses. And if that line makes you sneaker, good, because most policy debates are arguing over the buck, while ignoring the bank. So if you want the big lever that improves affordability without detonating the nation's balance sheet, productivity improvement is definitely one of them. But here's the punchline. Most public debate treats housing like it's a moral argument, when it's actually a math argument in a systems problem. And productivity is the maths underneath. Now let's talk about the two places Australia bleeds productivity like a slow puncture.

It's like trying to fill up a tyre with a nail still in it. You can pump harder, you can swear louder, you can blame the servo, but until you pull a nail out, you're just paying for air that leaks away. So number one, we've made building homes slower, harder and more expensive than it needs to be. Not because tradies aren't good, they're brilliant, but because we've created a system where time gets burned in rework, duplication, delays and approvals limbo. Which means every home carries a hidden tax. The tax of wasted time.

Number two, we've layered so much friction into the economy that doing anything requires three forms, two consultants, a compliance officer and a sacrificial goat. And yes, before anyone faints, I'm not anti-safety. I'm not anti-care. We need standards. But we've got to be honest. When the pendulum swings too far,

we start protecting ourselves in the stagnation. Now, we've seen a big lift in employment in government-funded and care sectors, as I mentioned earlier. Now, these jobs are essential, and they're not unimportant. They're vital for an ageing country. But measured productivity is often lower

or harder to quantify in non-market services compared to sectors that produce scalable output per hour through capital, technology, and innovation. So if a big chunk of job growth is concentrated in the areas where productivity is harder to lift quickly, we shouldn't be shocked when the productivity numbers look sickly. And when productivity looks sickly, the economy speed limit falls, living standards feel squeezed, and housing feels further away. Now, let's make this constructive. When people say lift productivity, they often mean work harder. No, that's not

productivity, that's just sweat. Real productivity is working smarter with better tools, better systems, less rework and less friction. And here's the cultural bit that no one likes saying out loud. Australia's been lucky for a long time. We've had long runs of growth, a resourceless tailwind and a great lifestyle. But slowly, quietly, world-class is being replaced and eroded with She'll be right, mate, and maybe we'll get to it after the smoke out. Rough enough, good enough, near enough. The latest CFMEU union debacle, creaming up between $15 billion to $30 billion of our hard-earned tax dollars

from the big bill projects in Victoria, while the Teflon politicians keep turning away and saying nothing to see here, is an absolute classic example. The deniability without accountability is a growing catch-cry, unfortunately. But here's the thing, when a whole country runs on minimal acceptable, the bill shows up later as high costs, slower approvals, stubborn inflation and wages that can't quite catch up. Productivity isn't punishment, it's pride. It's choosing what's the absolute best we can do instead of what's the least we can get away with. And sadly, we see it everywhere.

If you've ever watched someone do a 20-minute job in two hours because the tools weren't ready, the parts weren't ordered, and three people had to sign off to touch a screwdriver, that's not hard work, that's wasted work. And wasted work is the invisible tax every Australian pays without seeing it on the invoice. So what does real productivity look like in real life? Here are practical levers that don't require a miracle, just coordination and spine. One, reduce rework without turning Australia into a cookie-cutter catalogue. We don't need one house for everyone. We need repeatable pathways for fit-for-purpose housing. Same way a great kitchen has a few proven layouts,

but you still choose the recipe that suits who's coming to dinner. So instead of standardising the homes, we standardise the process. Clear planning rules, faster decisions, fewer contradictory reports, consistent requirements and a smarter pattern book approach that offers a menu of local fit options different sizes different densities different lifestyles match to what people actually want in that location because building the wrong thing faster isn't productivity it's just speed running the mistakes two approvals with time limits we infrastructure is ready when application meets the rules, it shouldn't sit in a drawer until the next ice age. And if councils are under-resourced,

fund the bottleneck, because every month of delay is cost-added to every home. Three, industrialise parts of building where it makes sense. Prefab, modular, off-site manufacturing, not as a gimmick, as a productivity engine. And not the dumb version where we copy-paste the same soulless box into the wrong suburb and call it supply. The smart version is better components, better quality control, faster build times and housing choices that actually match local demand. Other countries that build faster tend to standardise more and manufacture more off-site, improves time certainty and reduces work. Four, capital deepening, which as economists speak for better equipment, better tech, better systems, so each worker can produce more per hour.

Because if businesses aren't investing in tools and technology, productivity doesn't magically rise. Hope is not a strategy. 5. Stock duplicating compliance. If the same risk is assessed three times by three agencies, that's not safety, that's bureaucracy cosplay. A one assessment shared across model cuts time without cutting standards. Six, lift R&D and commercialisation. Australia has great ideas. We just have a habit of exporting them before we scale them. Innovation is productivity with a turbocharger. And this is where productivity stops being economic jargon and becomes kitchen table reality. Now tie this back to housing. If we lift productivity, we get two wins at once. We get

stronger real wage growth without just inflating prices and we get lower build cost pressure over time which improves feasibility and encourages supply. That's how you narrow the gap between incomes and home prices without smashing existing investors in the kneecap, smashing existing homeowners in the kneecaps. So when you hear someone say affordability equals tax reform you can calmly say, no mate, affordability equals supply plus incomes, not slogans. And productivity is the bridge between the two. Now, this is where the debate usually pivots because when affordability feels tight and productivity feels weak, the finger starts pointing somewhere else, back to migration, population, and too many people. And this is

where we need to tread carefully because the lazy version of this argument sounds simple, but simple is not the same as correct. As I keep reinforcing, you can't shrink your way to prosperity and you can't solve a productivity problem by blaming the people who are also working inside that system. So let's unpack that property and zoom back out because here's the element that never makes the headlines. Affordability isn't just house prices,

it's house prices relative to income. We obsess over the numerator and ignore the denominator. If wages don't grow and productivity doesn't lift, home ownership becomes a moving target and a runaway train. So a big part of the affordability fix is unsexy but essential. It means we stop chasing shortcuts and start fixing systems. It means more skilled people on real job sites instead of stuck in paperwork loops. It means approvals measured in weeks, not in political cycles.

It means digital planning systems that talk to each other instead of arguing with each other. It means smarter building methods where they generally reduce cost and time, not just pump out stock that nobody wants. It means investing in tools, technology and coordination so the same hour of work creates more value. Because productivity isn't abstract. it's the difference between a builder finishing in nine months instead of 14 a young couple qualifying instead of missing out or a project stacking up instead of stalling because if we increase productivity we reduce bill cost pressure over time and we increase wages sustainably and we improve serviceability you don't fix affordability by compressing wealth

You fix it by expanding incomes and expanding supply. That's the adult version. And then when we turn to the long term, we need to broaden the pathway conversation because this is where it gets interesting. Australia treats home ownership like the only successful adult badge. But look at Germany and Switzerland. In those countries, a large share of people rent long term and are socially normal, and the rental system is generally more secure than what we Aussies are used to. Now, that doesn't mean housing's cheap. It means renting isn't treated as failure.

So the wealth conversation expands, where we're all encouraged and incentivised to invest in other assets too. The lesson for Australia isn't everyone should rent forever The lesson is let's build a world where long-term renting can be stable and where rent vesting isn't second class which is exactly what Sonia and I proudly did for decades by living affordably where we needed to and investing where we could afford to We also need to create an Australia where we actively support everyone to build wealth

even if they don't buy their home at 27 That means policy options like incentives for longer leases with clearer rules, encouraging institutional build to rent and keeping mum and dad's supply healthy. It means government-matched dollar-for-dollar saving structures and investment incentives for birth, the bill deposits over time, and long-term retirement incomes that reduce dependency on public purse pensions. and it means creating default wealth building pathways that aren't only buy the biggest house you can. Now let's talk about the hidden choke point. We've got a lot of Australians who are asset rich but income poor. They're in the family home or in a home that's bigger than they need.

They might generally want to right size but they hit the wall of changeover costs like stamp duty, moving costs, renovation costs and the fear of getting whacked are my age pension rules. So what happens? They stay put. And when they stay put, larger homes don't recycle to younger families.

So churn slows and supply feels even tighter. So it's not just about not enough homes, it's not enough movement. In this regard, we do have one good lever already, the Downsizer Super Contribution Scheme, which allows eligible people to contribute proceeds from selling the home into their super but it doesn't remove stamp duty and you still need to consider pension impacts. So if it's serious we consider things like stamp duty reform that reduces penalties for right

sizing, targeted duty concessions for downsize where it frees up family stock, it means better aligned pension rules so downsizing doesn't feel like stepping on a rake and it means more diverse right-sizer housing options in established suburbs. Because unlocking that door improves churn without smashing prices. It's like finally putting a proper exit ramp on a freeway that's been gridlocked for years. So here's the big picture. We don't need one tax change rabbit to be pulled out of the hat.

We need a raft of aligned and integrated changes that incorporate things like speeding up supply, sequencing infrastructure, lifting productivity and wages, stabilizing rent options, broadening wealth pathways, and unlocking downsizing in turn. That's how you improve affordability without detonating everyone's wealth and balance sheet. Because housing isn't a morality debate. It's a systems coordination challenge. And systems require integration, not scapegoating. And this is the difference between policy theatre and policy plumbing. Now, back to you and me and the decision in front of every investor listening, because this is where emotion meets action.

Every time the tax debate heats up, I get lots of messages. Should I wait? Should I sell? Is it over, Bushy? Many are saying, I'll just sit this out. I'll wait for tax changes, because prices are going to crash. But be very, very watchful and careful about this. Markets price in fear long before legislation passes. And most often, nothing passes. Meanwhile, you've lost time. And time is compounding's best friend. And I've seen this movie many times before, like endless reruns at Friends. So let me tell you a story about two investors, same area, same selling capital and the same headlines

but one panicked and one planned the panicker read every headline as a signal of doom and they sold early then they waited for reform they waited for price collapse they sat in cash

as they watched rents rise as they watched prices rise and they watched opportunity get further away and all the while the planner read the same headlines as noise with a long cycle they just adjusted their buffers they stress tested their cash flow and they bought quality in scarcity locations and then they held and they refinance when appropriate and they let compounding do its work 10 years later of the old compare the pair super ad their balance sheets looked nothing like

and the difference wasn't intelligence it was emotional regulation because property conditions move in cycles while policy debates move in loops and all the while wealth compounds in decades it's rarely built by the loudest person in the room it's built by the quiet builder who keeps laying bricks while everyone else argues about the blueprint so remember that image because going to come back to it. So what should investors do right now? Not panic, not posture, not rage comment on Facebook, just do five simple things. First, purchase property focused on fundamentals like location scarcity, employment diversity, infrastructure pipeline and income growth at your affordable price point because tax is secondary to underlying demand drivers. Second,

stress test your numbers with higher rates, lower rents and policy uncertainty. If it still works under conservative assumptions, you're not speculating, you're investing. Thirdly, prioritise your buffers because liquidity and rainy day reserves buy peace and peace buys patience and patience buys compounding. Fourthly, avoid binary thinking. It's not tax reform or boom it's a complex ecosystem so think probabilistically not emotionally fifth play the long game because tax settings shift governments change and cycles turn but scarcity scarcity persists and housing remains foundational to australians balance sheets always has and always will and here's something subtle when media chatter about affordability is

loud, it usually means prices have been rising, which means scarcity is doing what scarcity does. That's uncomfortable socially, but it's exactly why properties are long-term wealth builder. All right, we've covered a lot of territory today, so let's bring this all home, because I don't want this episode to just feel like a rant with references. So here's the real world version. If you react emotionally to tax chatter, you become the panicker. You tighten up. You freeze. You second guess everything. You sit in cash waiting for the perfect moment. And perfect moments rarely send calendar invites. If instead you zoom out and think in decades, you become the planner. You take action. You stress test your numbers. You

assume rates stay higher for longer. You assume policy noise continues. And if the deal still works under conservative assumptions, you move. Because wealth isn't built in uncertainty. It's built in disciplined ambiguity. I want to say that again. Wealth isn't built in certainty. It's built in disciplined ambiguity. So bringing this all ahead, here's your ambushed bushfire lightning round and your fast forward Q&A. But take this as perspective, not instruction. Question one, What's the real risk? Well, it's not Canberra maybe policy. It's not some headline with capital letters and attitude.

The real risk is you making a permanent money decision from a temporary emotion. Question two, what's the opportunity here? It's the boring, beautiful truth. Structural scarcity in a country where population and productivity still matter long term. Because scarcity doesn't trend on TikTok, but it does show up. on your balance sheet. Question three, what's the overlook factor? Supply friction beats tax tinkering every time because you can change the rules on the scoreboard but if you don't add seats to the stadium, tickets still get dearer. And finally question four, what's the action? Think

like a builder not a gambler. Builders plan, they buffer, they measure twice, they don't knock down the whole house because the weather turned. So be the builder. And here's your final food for thought. You can't tax your way out of a housing shortage. You can't shrink your way to prosperity and you can't build wealth by reacting to every tax policy rumour. Affordability is not sold by punishing ownership. It's sold by expanding supply and expanding productivity. And that requires boring policy discipline, not political theatre. And here's your quote of the week. In a shortage, anything that shrinks supply makes affordability worse. Simple, uncomfortable, but always true. Now, as I close, let me say something quietly but clearly. If all this feels noisy, if you're

sitting there thinking, okay, Bushy, I get the logic, but what does this mean for me? Well, That's fair because macro discussion is interesting, but your mortgage is personal, your deposit is personal, and your retirement plan is personal. So if you're unsure whether to move or hold or restructure or wait, don't make that call in isolation and definitely don't make it based on a headline. If you're on a sounding board, feel free to book in with me for a personal solution session by just clicking the link in the show notes. Not to sell you something, not to hype you up, but to slow you down. We'll pull your numbers apart properly, we'll stress test them, we'll model it, we'll look at your buffers, we'll look at your buying

capacity, look at your long-term life-time goals, and we'll separate what's real from what's noise. Because most anxiety comes from ambiguity. But clarity reduces stress. And good strategy reduces regret. That's what I call building your strategy. Not reacting, but designing. And if you're someone who likes community learning and independent thinking in a safe circle of safety with like-minded investors, come join us inside the Property Hub Collective. It's not a hype chamber. It's not a get-rich-quick echo chamber. It's a space where we challenge assumptions and think properly about integrating your self-help and wealth to achieve your version of sustainable success and your version of financial freedom. And if you want the full

roadmap, step-by-step and end-to-end, that's exactly why I created the recently released Property Wealth Program. It's your GPS. Because the truth is, the 5% who achieve sustainable success don't bounce around reacting to every policy rumour. They don't build wealth by refreshing news feeds. They build it by understanding cycles, managing risk, thinking long-term, acting deliberately and staying calm when everyone else gets emotional that's the difference if that's the path you want to be on i'd love to help you walk it properly so friend and fighters as we close let's zoom out again because this tax policy debate will come back again it always does the next tax rise with the next rate rise the next election cycle the next affordability spike

and the next media wave. So save and circle back to this episode every time the bad boomerang of tax policy changes gets shouted from the rooftops by the police and the media as the quick fix for affordability. Because every time it does, we're tempted to reach for the nearest villain.

Because villains are easier than systems. But housing isn't a morality play. It's an ecosystem. And ecosystems don't respond to outrage. They respond to incentives. If we want affordability to improve, we need more homes. If we want more homes, we need more builders, more capital, faster approvals, better planning and smarter productivity.

Because productivity isn't a slogan. It's the difference between Australia feels harder every year and Australia gets more prosperous without pricing out its own people. So no slogans and no scapegoats. And here's the part that matters most. You don't build your financial future by reacting to political theatre. You build it by understanding fundamentals like scarcity, supply, demand, behaviour and cycles. The headlines will shout.

The comment sections will rage. The politicians will posture. But long-term wealth is built quietly by people who sit calmly inside the noise and think. So the next time someone says, just scrap negative gearing, problem solved, smile. And then ask them gently, what happens next? Because that question alone separates reaction from understanding. And if this episode shifted even one assumption to you,

then share it with a mate, with someone frustrated, with someone convinced that investors are the villain, or with your local politician, because better policy comes from better thinking. and better thinking starts with conversations that go way beyond the headline. Because, Freedom Fighters, quick fixes feel good, but so does fast food. But long-term nourishment takes patience and long-term discipline works. So on a shortage, anything that shrinks supply makes affordability worse

and you can't shrink your way to prosperity. So we all need to be very careful what we wish for because often the cure bites harder than the disease if the flow-on consequences haven't been thought through like a good chess player. And that's the whole point of this episode. Quick fixes are seductive because short, simple fixes sound seductive

but in housing they come with a hangover and they have very long and expensive stings in the tail. So thanks for taking the time to listen and remember to always think better than the headline, always think longer than the cycle and always always get invested thanks for tuning in to get invested on the property hub podcast channel your home for property investment insights and inspiration make sure you subscribe to property hub for free get your weekly dose of get invested inspiration along with every episode of realty talk australia's top online property show for

red-hot property investing news and insights direct from industry leaders and influencers. And finally, I'll see you next time.