Karen Middleton

That's right.

So as of budget night tonight, anyone buying a property will only be able to negatively gear it if it's a newly built property, not an established one.

Anyone who's already got an established property will be able to continue to negatively gear it.

In terms of capital gains tax, the 50% capital gains tax discount that exists now is going to be replaced by a return to what was the old system, an inflation-based cost assessment system.

They'll also have a minimum 30% tax applied.

Now, people buying new properties will be able to choose which version of the system they access to minimise their tax.

again, to try and boost the sale of new properties, but those with established properties are going to lose that 50% discount now.

Well, that's the question the government's going to have to answer.

And I reckon they'll get that question quite a lot in the next few days because there'll be people who argue that it's still inequitable if the people already in the market who've had the advantage and been able to access the housing market and buy investment properties can continue to negatively gear them.

whereas the people who had aspired to do that one day will only be able to do that on new properties.

Now, they will still be able to do that on new properties, but there will be this debate, I think, about whether it goes far enough to addressing the intergenerational inequity issue.

The government argues that there was no perfect way to do this and that they had to have a transition arrangement because they couldn't

sort of holus bolus change the tax system for everyone already in the market.

But it's going to raise those kinds of questions and maybe criticisms.

Well, it's fascinating, Ruby, because you're right, they said at the election emphatically, in fact, the Prime Minister was quite forceful with journalists who were asking him about this, that they were not going to make these changes and they've changed.

And they say that things have changed since the election.

And I think circumstances have changed, but there's going to be a question about whether people accept the reasoning and the argument in favour of breaking the promise.

You've got these kind of competing constituencies.

You've got the people who say, we want the government to do something.

It's got a huge majority.