Government defends budget changes to negative gearing and capital gains tax

Environment Minister Murray Watt has defended the government's changes to negative gearing and capital gains tax in the federal budget.

A post-budget Newspoll has found 60 per cent of people surveyed believe the government's housing measures are "a step in the wrong direction" or "will make no difference".

Speaking to ABC Radio National Breakfast, Watt says the government didn't expect to get a boost in the polls when announcing the measures.

"We did it to boost the number of young Australians getting a foothold on the housing market and that's what we think that it will achieve," Watt says.

"We could either sit back and allow the current situation to continue with too many Australians locked out of the housing market, especially younger Australians, or we could take some difficult decisions," he says.

Industry Minister Tim Ayres says the government is "making progress" towards finding a buyer for the Liberty Bell Bay smelter in Tasmania.

The facility, which is Australia's only manganese smelter, has been placed into voluntary administration.

Speaking to ABC's AM program, Ayres says the state and federal governments are trying to put the smelter in the best possible position.

"We're making progress in very challenging circumstances with an uncertain outcome. But this is the right thing to do for 200 workers who are let down by the previous owner of that facility," Ayres says.

"It was the responsibility of the previous owner to properly capitalise this business and it's been severely damaged by the previous owner. The administrator is working through those issues," he says.

Moving on to the budget now, the PM has been asked about criticism over changes to negative gearing and capital gains tax.

The federal government broke an election promise and made changes to negative gearing and capital gains tax in last week's federal budget.

Negative gearing will now be limited to new home builds, and the capital gains tax will be wound back under the measures.

Anthony Albanese has again moved to defend the changes, saying the negative gearing reforms are grandfathered.

Speaking to Triple M Hobart, the PM says the changes will ensure that first home buyers aren't disadvantaged.

"The point of housing policy is that we need more supply, we need more homes," the prime minister says.

"It's about getting 75,000 additional young first home buyers into their first home and we need to do that," he says.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has hit the commercial airwaves and has joined Triple M Hobart in the studio.

Albanese has first been asked about domestic and family violence, after two women were killed in Tasmania at the weekend.

The prime minister says the government has allocated $100 million in the Housing Australia Future Fund for emergency housing.

"Money is important, but it's not enough. We need to change attitudes. We need to say and declare as a society one woman being subjected to violence is one too many," Albanese says.

Social Services Minister Tanya Plibersek says the government still has explaining to do about the measures in this year's federal budget.

Polling in the Nine newspapers today shows many Australians are still undecided about Labor's changes to capital gains tax and negative gearing in last week's federal budget.

Newspoll found that 47 per cent of people surveyed believed the federal budget was bad for the Australian economy.

Labor has limited negative gearing to new home builds and wound back the capital gains tax discount and replaced it with a 30 per cent minimum tax rate.

"There's a big group in the middle who don't yet understand what's being decided, who we've got to talk to, we've got to explain what we're doing," Plibersek has told Channel Seven.

The government promised not to make changes to negative gearing and capital gains tax ahead of the last election.

One Nation MP Barnaby Joyce says the reason the government is "finding it hard" to explain is because "they lied".

"There's a lot of lies going on, and of course, no one is going to believe it when they explain it because they believe that they're liars," Joyce says.

Hello and welcome to another edition of our federal politics live blog! We've successfully made it to the other side of budget week! 🎉

I'm Josh Boscaini joining you live from Parliament House in Canberra, here and ready to bring you all of today's federal politics news.

Even though the budget was last week's news, it's still fresh in the minds of many here on Capital Hill and around the country so we're likely to get some more reaction to that today.

I'm not sure what today will bring us so let's get into the day and see what happens!

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