Why I am absolutely entitled to bring the Australian taxpayer with me to a housing auction

I was being driven to my accountant’s office in the CBD this morning when my chauffeur mistakenly left the radio tuned to Triple M Hobart. Before I could request that he switch to the classical station, I was assaulted by the voice of Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, who is apparently on a three-state blitz to threaten the very foundations of the Australian way of life.

The Prime Minister was taking to the airwaves to tout his latest federal budget plans, specifically his misguided crusade to tinker with negative gearing and the capital gains tax discount. He referred to this impending disaster as a "recalibration of fairness in the housing system."

He then painted a tragic little picture for the listeners. He said that when a first-home buyer rocks up to an auction and finds themselves competing against an investor, the investor has "the taxpayer by their side."

To which I say: yes, Anthony. I do have the taxpayer by my side. And frankly, the taxpayer should be grateful for the invitation. It is a lovely day out.

There is a toxic narrative taking root in this country that somehow, leveraging massive government tax deductions to systematically outbid young couples for entry-level housing is a bad thing. It is deeply hypocritical of the state. I was reading the live news updates just this week, noting that the New South Wales police laid 2,063 charges and conducted over 1,847 bail compliance checks in a massive four-day sweep targeting domestic violence.

It was a staggering deployment of state resources to protect the vulnerable. The government clearly understands the concept of a "blitz" to maintain order. Yet, when it comes to the housing market, Albanese’s idea of a "blitz" is to tour three states threatening to remove protections from the most vulnerable demographic of all: the highly leveraged property speculator.

We are constantly subjected to these sob stories about millennials who have saved for a decade, sacrificed their youth, and arrived at a property inspection with a pre-approval letter and a dream. They are inevitably crushed by someone like me, who hasn't even seen the floor plan but urgently needs a tax write-off before the end of the financial year.

What the Prime Minister fails to understand is the sheer emotional toll of being the villain in these people's lives. Do you know how exhausting it is to stand on the pristine front lawn of a three-bedroom fixer-upper in the inner suburbs, wearing a cashmere sweater draped casually over my shoulders, and watch the light die in a young family's eyes as I raise my paddle for the fourth time?

Just last month, I flew down to Hobart—a city I would never normally visit for pleasure, but which offers delightful yields on dual-occupancy conversions. I attended an auction in Sandy Bay. My competition was a local couple. They had a golden retriever. They looked like an advertisement for a mid-tier health insurance fund.

They bid in agonizing, thousand-dollar increments. The auctioneer practically had to coax the bids out of them, dragging the numbers from their throats as they mentally calculated the cost of sacrificing their future children's education. I, meanwhile, was bidding in ten-thousand-dollar increments while simultaneously browsing for a new espresso machine on my phone.

When it got down to what the Prime Minister so inelegantly phrased the "business end" of the auction, the husband looked across the lawn at me. He had reached his absolute limit. His bank would not give him another cent. He was relying entirely on his own income. The absolute fool.

He did not realize he was not just bidding against me. He was bidding against the collective fiscal might of the Australian populace. He was bidding against the very tax system he pays into. Every time that young man goes to work, a fraction of his income tax is quietly funneled into the structural deficit that allows me to write off the interest on my interest-only loan for the very house he was trying to buy. It is, frankly, poetic.

Albanese complains that this puts investors in a "stronger position." But isn't that the entire point of a functioning democracy? To ensure that those who already own seven properties are given state-sponsored armor to prevent anyone else from acquiring their first?

Let us look at the mechanics of this so-called unfairness. The entire genius of the Australian economic model is that we reward failure in the rental market. If I purchase my eighth property, and the rental yield does not cover the mortgage repayments, the government steps in to soften the blow against my personal income tax.

It is the only system in the world where being terrible at generating positive cash flow makes you a millionaire. I am practically providing a public service. I am single-handedly ensuring that the banking sector continues to post record multibillion-dollar profits. I am the apex predator in the ecosystem, and without me, the entire savanna collapses into egalitarian chaos.

And then there is the capital gains tax discount. Albanese calls his plan a recalibration. I call the discount the only thing preventing me from having to actually work for a living. The premise is simple: I hold onto a property while the surrounding neighborhood gentrifies, contributing absolutely nothing to the community myself, and when I sell it for a massive profit, the government kindly asks for half the usual tax.

It is a polite reward for my patience. First-home buyers do not get this reward because they intend to live in the house. Living in a house is consumption. Leaving it empty to accumulate speculative value is an investment. We must not confuse the two.

I had lunch recently with a colleague who understands this dynamic perfectly. We were discussing the sheer entitlement of the modern renter class over a rather exquisite wagyu ribeye, and he articulated the burden of our station flawlessly. If we strip away the capital gains tax discount, what incentive do I have to hoard shelter during a national crisis? Without negative gearing, I might be forced to invest my capital in productive businesses, or innovation, or the broader economy.

Is that what Albanese wants? A nation where capital flows toward creating jobs rather than passively inflating the cost of a 1970s brick veneer bungalow?

The Prime Minister’s rhetoric is not just insulting; it is profoundly anti-aspirational. When a young couple sees me effortlessly outbid them by fifty thousand dollars—money that I will largely recoup by declaring a strategic loss on my tax return—they should not feel despair. They should feel inspired.

They should look at me, flanked by my real estate agent and the invisible, comforting specter of the Australian taxpayer, and think, "One day, if I work hard enough, the government might subsidize my hobby of financially ruining people just like me."

But instead, they complain. They go to the media. They write long, whining posts on social media about how the system is rigged. Of course it is rigged, you absolute children. That is why it is called a system.

So the next time you rock up to an auction, dear first-home buyers, and you see me standing there, quietly conferring with my accountant on speakerphone, do not look at me with resentment. Recognize that I am not alone. I have the power of the Commonwealth behind me. I have the tax code in my corner. And I will not apologize for using every single cent of your public money to make sure you keep paying my mortgage.