Mythical beasts and public policy Federal Treasurer Scott Morrison recently derided the ALP’s Positive Plan to Help Housing Affordability as “selling a unicorn”. Colourful language, but what is happening in policy terms? Even though unicorns do not exist,[1] tax and housing policies do. And it is legitimate for any political party to propose changes to policy. Indeed, negative gearing has been considered politically untouchable ever since 1987 and the ALP may have done the Government a huge favour by putting this risky proposition into play. 1987, 1999, 2009 and 2015 In 1985, the Hawke Government slashed the tax benefits of negative gearing by limiting the offsets to income derived from the investment property, and not allowing offsets against other income such as wages. The outcry from the vested interests in the housing, real estate and construction sectors, sustained political...