Australian Election 2025: Greens leader Adam Bandt proposes reform to negative gearing, capital gains tax at National Press Club

Adam Bandt has dismissed Anthony Albanese’s claim Labor won’t do any deals with the Greens in the event of a hung parliament, saying the Prime Minister will “have to learn to play well with others”. “I would be astounded … if the Prime Minister or anyone else refused to respect the parliament that the Australian people choose,” Mr Bandt, the leader of the Greens, said at the National Press Club on Wednesday. “If he can convince 51 per cent of the population to vote for him, then OK. But that’s not what’s happening … that’s not what he did last time. “And with more people saying they want more voices at the table as part of a strong crossbench, he’s going to have to learn to play well with others.” Mr Albanese has said a number of times he is aiming for majority government and is not interested in negotiating with the Greens, but polling suggests the outcome of the May 3 election could be a hung parliament. In his speech and in the question and answer session that followed, Mr Bandt confirmed his hard-left party would do everything within their power to keep Opposition Leader Peter Dutton out of government, and then push Labor to adopt Greens policy priorities. “The red line is we won’t support Peter Dutton,” he said. “And we will go into any discussions with an open mind, but with a clear platform that we’re going to put on the table. “And that’s what we’re doing in advance of the election. We’re letting people know that, in this coming minority parliament, we’re saying, if you vote for the Greens, here’s what you’re going to get.” Mr Bandt, who represents the seat of Melbourne in parliament, said the Greens would push to embed dental care into Medicare and end all coal and gas projects. The Greens will also reform negative gearing and end capital gains tax discounts on investment properties, he said, to lower prices for Millennial and Gen Z buyers who find themselves locked out of property ownership. Primary places of residence will not be subjected to CGT under the Greens plan and a single investment property will also remain covered by negative gearing arrangements and the 50 per cent CGT discount. “Our proposal is a serious attempt to restore everyone’s economic rights, giving younger generations and renters a chance at home ownership while protecting ‘mum and dad’ investors,” Mr Bandt said in his NPC address. “Nothing is more urgent than housing. We (the Greens) are refusing to join in this battle of the bandaids between Labor and the Liberals. “Their approach is breaking the social contract and tearing the country apart.” But all other properties would be stripped of the incentives. Negative gearing allows investors to offset losses from owning a property on their tax bill, while a capital gain is the profit an investor makes from selling an asset, such as a house or a stock. Both policies are designed to boost housing supply by encouraging investment in property. But Mr Bandt said wealthy investors exploited the policies to park their money into property and inflate prices, locking young buyers out. “A wealthy property investor with a portfolio of other people’s homes can turn up at an auction and push the price up so it’s out of reach of a renter looking to buy their first home,” he said. “The investor can write rental losses off on tax while they own it, and when they sell it, they get a tax break potentially worth hundreds of thousands of dollars from the government. How is that fair?” In a concerted pitch to younger voters, Mr Bandt also formally proposed a rent freeze. “Landlords cannot be allowed to raise rents by whatever number they want,” he said. “There has to be limits. Rents don’t fall when mortgage rates fall. “Labor claims they can’t do it, but they got the States and territories together to cap and regulate power prices, and they can do it with rents as well.” At present, the Greens hold four seats in the federal parliament: Melbourne, as well as the inner-Brisbane seats of Ryan, Griffith and Brisbane. The hard-left party is also targeting the inner-Melbourne seat of Wills and Macnamara and the suburban Brisbane seat of Moreton. Mr Albanese has dismissed Mr Bandt as someone “trying to make himself relevant”. “Adam Bandt is trying to make himself relevant, I don’t blame him for that. That’s up to him. All the minor parties will try to do that,” Mr Albanese told reporters at an election campaign stop at Paddy’s Market in Sydney. “There’s nothing new about the Greens talking themselves up because sometimes the media follow that up for whatever reason. It makes things a bit more interesting. “But the truth is, that our objective is to hold onto the 78 seats we have and currently build on it.” Mr Bandt on Wednesday also slammed the “big loser energy” coming from the White House and said Australia needed to reassess its alliance with the US. He said Australia should consider renegotiating the ANZUS alliance, a bedrock security agreement between Australia and the US signed in 1951. “It is something we need to renegotiate because Australia has, I think, a not very proud history of following the United States into every war it has chosen to go into,” he said. “And I don’t think we should be signing up in advance to go off and join whatever war (US President) Donald Trump wants to fight next.”