New AFR / Freshwater Strategy polling reveals that a majority of voters support maintaining negative gearing, with concerns about potential changes widely shared across age groups.
Freshwater Strategy conducted the poll of 1,034 voters from Friday, 18 October to Sunday, 20 October.
General insights from the monthly AFR / Freshwater Strategy poll can be found here.
Support for Negative Gearing
More voters say that they support maintaining negative gearing (44%) than those who oppose maintaining it (39%).
Those who live in a property that they own are significantly more likely to support negative gearing (53% with a mortgage, 56% without), while renters are more divided (44% oppose, 36% support). While those who own an investment property are strongly in support (64%) those who do not own one are divided (40% support, 40% oppose).
A significant minority of younger voters (35%) say that they support maintaining negative gearing. Less than a majority (42%) oppose maintaining negative gearing.
About 45% of voters believe that investors should be able to negatively gear multiple properties. About one quarter (28%) say they should be able to negatively gear just 1 property, and just 17% say none at all.
Impact of Negative Gearing Changes
More say they believe scrapping negative gearing would lead to higher property prices (40%), than those who believe it would lead to lower property prices (30%).
A clear majority of Australian voters (66%) say that scrapping negative gearing would result in higher rents, with 45% saying they believe rents would increase ‘a lot’. Just one in ten (10%) say they believe rents would decrease.
Read AFR political editor Phil Coorey’s analysis of the poll in today’s paper, here.
For frequently updated insights on key voter insights, head to Freshwater Strategy’s Data Stream.
Methodology
Freshwater Strategy interviewed n=1,034 eligible voters in Australia, aged 18+ online, between 18-20 October 2024. Margin of Error +/- 3.1%. Data are weighted to be representative Australian of voters.