Waleed Aly wants to #ShutThisPartyDown. And this party is fuelled by a negative gearing policy lasting for almost two decades, which Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull wants to keep going.
In his latest Something We Should Talk About segment, Aly not only nailed the explanation of negative gearing, but both the Prime Minister's policy and Opposition Leader's.. well, leadership, before poking fun at himself.
For those needing a crash course in negative gearing, enjoy The Project co-host's explanation here, written with Tom Whitty:
Negative gearing shut you out of the housing market? Is it time we #ShutThisPartyDown? By Waleed and @twhittyer.
— #TheProjectTV (@theprojecttv) April 27, 2016
On Sunday, Turnbull announced there would be no changes to negative gearing under the Coalition, which is in opposition to Bill Shorten's election promise to limit negative gearing. The Prime Minister made the announcement at a home in the Sydney suburb of Penshurst, recently purchased by a couple for their baby who hasn't quite reached her first birthday.
"Negative gearing has contributed to you, Generation X, Y and millennials not being able to buy a home, but it has got this baby one. So it all evens out, yeah?" Aly said.
On The 7:30 Report on Tuesday night, Leigh Sales grilled the Prime Minister over the "modelling" he used to back up claims Labor's limited negative gearing policy would force housing prices down dramatically.
Turnbull said his argument was based on a report by BIS Shrapnel and "common sense" around the laws of supply and demand. This report has since been slammed by the Grattan Institute (you can read all about that here).
"He didn't have modelling on Labor's policy, but we do," Waleed said; "modelling by the Australian National University Centre for Social Research and Methods found that Labor's policy would slow the growth of house prices, increase new construction, raise billions each year for the budget and it literally said Labor's policy could be 'the biggest housing affordability policy this country has seen' and no political party, organisation or individual commissioned that modelling."
Arguing that house prices have risen from 1.6 times the average household income in 1960 to 4.3 times the average household income now, Aly said it "is amazing when you consider that so many more houses now have two incomes, so good luck if you are single."
"Bill Shorten is the complaining neighbour who calls the cops and says the music is too loud," Aly said about the current negative gearing policy, "which is a problem because if Bill Shorten was my local car salesman, I would probably buy a boat. That is a big call because brown people on boats aren't particularly liked in this country.
"Bill's saying 'Shut this party down' and we know that all real Aussies don't like a party pooper. That is, until you realise that unless you are a baby boomer or apparently an actual baby, you're not invited to this party.
"For the last 17 years, investors have been partying like it's 1999, but it's time we shut this party down."