Don't mention the war (on negative gearing)

Meanwhile, the entire supply side of this discussion has (again) been pushed to one side. We have artificially inflated land prices by creating contrived growth boundaries around urban centres, intensifying competition for development sites to dizzying levels which flow directly to the consumer. Then we choke that limited supply with byzantine planning controls that even senior lawyers struggle to interpret, leading to high compliance and delay costs. For good measure we then tax that limited supply with excessive "user pays" levies for infrastructure that doesn't yet exist, while buyers of established homes in pampered inner city areas are surrounded by quality infrastructure they pay comparatively little for.

Our housing markets, the policies that guide them and the way in which new supply is controlled, have been allowed for successive years to get progressively worse, with little intervention other than to add complexity. We stand idly by and 'tutt tutt' the mounting generational affordability problem, all the while clipping the ticket as our existing portfolios rise in value.

It's as if the Property Council's latest campaign to defeat even the mention of changes to negative gearing – posed as it was by an opposition leader that few give a chance of winning – was spot on by picturing our housing markets as one big collective house of cards. Touch or tinker with any part of it, and the entire house of cards might come crashing down. Even raising this as a proposal from opposition benches is apparently perceived an act of war.

I'm not sure whether that was the intention or not but it's a scary thought to think that our markets might now be so distorted and vulnerable that even a discussion about changes to one aspect of housing policy is something to be attacked with hostile intensity.

Better it seems to instead cry havoc, and let loose the dogs of war.