There are a lot of disenfranchised voters who want to see the government try something, anything, to attempt to address the affordability issues. Doing nothing is not going to win votes, it's pretty clear negative gearing isn't working (at the very least, not very well), so what can be done? Changing policy to strongly favor new construction, which could be achieved by negative gearing on new construction. Bidding up existing stock, not sure how that is that supposed to help keep rentals affordable. The overinvestment in mining resulted in a flood of supply, which balanced the prices. That's not happening in the housing market, though it's not entirely clear to me why construction costs for a high rise (where land costs is a small component), would be rising at about the same rate as house prices. Labor costs and government imposed costs/regulations come to mind.
Will they gain more voters than they lose? Hard to say, and far from political suicide, it may boost numbers. They would have to poll first, I believe what we're seeing is labor putting out the feelers, to gauge voter sentiment.
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