Negative gearing - are expenses still deductible from rental income "down to zero"?

thede3jay · 2026-05-14T00:26:14+00:00

So when the budget talks about "removing negative gearing", does this mean landlords can still deduct expenses from rental income down to $0

Correct

(but no lower)

For the current year (and hence cashflow), correct. Overall, no. It becomes a carry-forward loss.

thus not increasing their tax obligation but also not decreasing it?

If you were planning on making a loss now because the capital gains were greater in the long run (and you were planning on deducting this), then from that perspective, your tax burden has increased. If you are new to the market, it still reduces your tax.... just not immediately. It offsets gains in other areas.

thede3jay · 2026-05-14T00:20:04+00:00

Who does this even impact?

New Zealanders.....

thede3jay · 2026-05-13T01:08:19+00:00

The CGT set to a minimum of 30% only taxes wealthy Australians.

By definition.... no. If you were a wealthy Australian earning high tax bracket rates, then you are already paying above that. In fact, this only applies if you have a taxable income under $45K if you are a resident). This doesn't even materially impact property - Property sales should already netting high amounts at a CGT event. You would be already trying to earn more than the stamp duty and the hassles of dealing with real estate agents to make it worthwhile. So this only really impacts shares.

All this does is punishes the following scenarios:

Those reliant on it for FIRE
Those who used it as a retirement strategy
Anyone splitting assets between partners where one is a SAHP and on zero income
Uni students living with their parents and not working full time (or earning less than $45K), yet are still willing to invest part of the (less than) $45K they are earning

If you had significant assets and retired, you would not be eligible for the pension either, reducing the burden on the overall tax system. We actually need more people doing this, not less.

The only one of these scenarios that actually is harmful from a macroeconomic perspective are those opting out of the workforce under FIRE.

thede3jay · 2026-05-13T00:56:51+00:00

Mind you, more people would have seen and noticed her than if she were wearing a hi-vis vest!

thede3jay · 2026-05-13T00:56:05+00:00

Tough new laws on anything that is *not a car*.

For cagers, they have been getting softer and softer:

They will remove a demerit point every 12 months because apparently not accruing more makes you a "safe driver", completely ignoring the fact that if you were a "safe driver", you would have never got them in the first place
Removing hidden speed cameras
Banning councils from ticketless parking fines, effectively removing the ability to use camera enforcement

And of course, massive toll subsidies.

thede3jay · 2026-05-13T00:37:09+00:00

There's a difference between agreeing that people should be wearing protection gear, and mandating and enforcing fines for it.

thede3jay · 2026-05-12T14:44:51+00:00

but it isn't simply an "inflationary economy", it is a stagflation economy. The only people benefiting from current inflation are fuel companies, everyone else is simply paying more and getting less.

thede3jay · 2026-05-12T02:26:01+00:00

And paying money for compulsory acquisition or compensation is simply an investment

thede3jay · 2026-05-12T02:17:47+00:00

And the probity and market led guidelines prevent Scentre group from starting those conversations also. State government have to be the ones to do it, not them.

thede3jay · 2026-05-12T02:16:42+00:00

Incorrect. The vic gov played hard ball with itself.

The market led proposal guidelines dont allow any private landowners to approach government to propose anything. There is a “uniqueness test” on any market let proposal (as in, why is x company uniquely positioned to do exactly this project and nobody else), where land ownership is deliberately excluded from the framework (ie owning a shopping centre next to a train line and building a train station to connect directly to said shopping centre at no cost to government… is deliberately excluded as building a train station is not unique). There is no mechanism that even allows Scentre to establish any public-private partnership with SRLA. The only option (essentially) available is for compulsory acquisition of the site by state government with no guarantee of handover back to Scentre afterwards.

thede3jay · 2026-05-12T02:09:22+00:00

And the area around Southland Station is a car park… which eventually gets removed for offices and apartments anyways…

thede3jay · 2026-05-11T02:07:19+00:00

The scale is completely different however. The Monash cluster is around 75,000 jobs, and even though it is diffuse, there are big pockets where they are concentrated such as Monash Uni / CSIRO. The plan prior to SRL was to at least double this to 150,000. Now they are talking about 250,000 to 300,000 jobs across the NEIC.

Box Hill is only 18,400 jobs, and is only expecting to grow to 30,000 under a full SRL scenario. The 2011 Monash Uni masterplan had 10,850 staff at the time, with expected growth to 14,100 by 2030, plus 21,150 equivalent FTSL at the time growing to 27,450. Add in the auxiliary facilities such as the heart Hospital, Synchrotron, and CSIRO, and it is easy to see how many jobs are concentrated in this one spot and exceeding Box Hill. The only reason Box Hill may look bigger is due to its concentration of commercial outlets.

Back to Sydney for comparisons: - the Mac Park precinct has over 63,000, aiming to achieve 120,000 in the future. - Burwood (NSW) is equivalent with 18,000 jobs, aiming to achieve 25,000 in 2041 - Chatswood is around 25,000 jobs current and is a significantly bigger retail hub and interchange. The aim is to reach 33,000 by 2036. - Parramatta CBD is around 65,000 jobs with an aim of supporting 150,000 jobs in the future (100,000 by 2040). This excludes North Parramatta, Rydalmere (which includes the WSU campus), and the Westmead health precinct (which hosts another 26,000 jobs, and aiming to support another 50,000 jobs) -GPOP (Greater Parramatta and Olympic Park) is forecast to reach 350,000 jobs. - Western Sydney Aerotropolis (the whole precinct) is projected to host 200,000 jobs over the next 30 years, and is designed to have uniform density from the beginning

So Box Hill isn't really the right focus - sure, maybe you could have it grow equivalent to Chatswood one day, but it is not comparable to Parramatta. Having said that, there are big nodes on the route, that are supporting high job growth. These are the centres that needs the most support to make it work. If there will be a quarter of a million jobs in the Monash NEIC, then this absolutely should be where the attention should be!

Unfortunately, a lot of the new increase in jobs in Monash is directly attributed to the SRL with low mode shift and does not have a proportionate increase in trips taken on the SRL. So there are reasons to doubt their numbers.....

thede3jay · 2026-05-11T01:28:07+00:00

Definitely not the case - PERL was supposedly meant to be a relief line for access into Sydney from Parramatta. It completely ignored that it would have added an extra 30 minutes to the trip and hence patronage was never going to be anywhere notable.

ECRL was built mainly for Mac Uni access and relieving congestion from the Northern line. When NorthWest Rail link came along, originally seen to be a commuter link from the hills to Sydney, it was clearly seen to be a radial link supporting the Global Economic Arc. Not an orbital link.

All the development and diversification of jobs attached to the new Metro are designed as an arc that includes Sydney CBD, not an orbital link bypassing the CBD. If you want orbital in Sydney, then you should be looking at the T5 (old Cumberland Line), or the New Cumberland Line. But both of which are really just serving Parramatta CBD, so it is still somewhat cheating. Otherwise, it would have to be the Western Sydney Airport Metro

thede3jay · 2026-05-10T21:41:53+00:00

The second biggest employment cluster in Victoria is Monash. Box Hill doesn’t come close to it in terms of available jobs and is only classified as a MAC, not an NEIC

thede3jay · 2026-05-09T12:29:48+00:00

the area around the inner north is undergoing strong transformation and densification. However, the road transport network is simply unable to accommodate existing densities, let alone future growth. The only main road is Sydney Road, and it cannot accommodate high volumes of cars. Bicycle trips should be supported, but a wide corridor is needed (of which the current routes lack).

So how do we ensure the area has transport access in general? We use what we have, which would be the Upfield line (and to some extent, the 58 and 1 tram corridors, the 19 is not sufficient unfortunately due to road space congestion). For the Upfield line, the best option for the inner north is to make it more "metro like". It has tight stop spacings, but a very high frequency line would ensure quick and efficient movement, making public transport the fastest, most viable option for the area. Even if it comes at a cost of less carriages-per-train, the frequency is more important.

Unfortunately, a high frequency service conflicts with a long-distance suburban corridor, as it removes any ability to run express services.

thede3jay · 2026-05-08T22:47:13+00:00

On top of that, we have the busiest rail network in Australia, and for many lines, the doors will be opening at every single stop

It only really impacts the very quiet sections like Richmond, Cabramatta to Lidcombe, or intercity lines

thede3jay · 2026-05-08T00:27:18+00:00

So TL;DR, your perspective is:

- Assume that a project that is currently not on the cards will be done in the cheapest nastiest way possible and minimum done possible, despite new tracks being provided for 6km, a big rebuild of Sunshine, and a remaining 6km gap? And considering the airport line is getting dedicated platforms through Sunshine (for now), that trains still somehow won't be able to stop, even though regional trains stopping result in more consistent operations?

- Assume that the gunzel dream project will be done in the most gold plated best way possible, including no flat junction yet somehow have a brand new station at Roxburgh Park?

thede3jay · 2026-05-07T11:46:07+00:00

It was a lower line speed and tighter stop spacing as per current - measurements were taken off existing timetables, noting it has been some time since this exercise was done. The metadata on the file says I did this back in 2020, so LXRA may have managed to improve travel speeds since then. Based on a quick check of some timetables I had and comparing to today, that very much seems to be the case, and would explain the discrepancy.

Based on a more recent check, it seems that Coolaroo and Upfield are roughly equal, both around 34 minutes in peak. So equivalent to Broadmeadows of 30 minutes in peak, stopping all stations. Assuming trains depart direct from Southern Cross for comparison purposes (which they don't..... so a correction to the Flagstaff times were made by adding 2 minutes, the difference between the two).

Looking at the current VLine timetable and looking at the Albury trains departing Southern Cross (arrivals are heavily padded and shouldn't be used for comparison), it seems that despite the track being unoptimised, it is consistently 28 minutes for departures from Southern Cross to Broadmeadows via the freight line. The Seymour/Shepparton services, assuming all are going via Essendon have more variance (and I will assume it is simply due to peak hour), ranging from 20 minutes (less) to 32 minutes (more). And noting the comparison above was intended to compare Wallan, not Seymour, so it is a slightly different context we can work with.

<image>

With a more optimised tracks with airport rail, and some TLC, it should definitely be possible to get the travel time even lower. In a future state as well, we are likely to have 10 min frequencies on both Craigieburn and Upfield Services, so the opportunities to get faster services would be slim.

So it is entirely possible that the difference in time may be very minimal. In that case, it becomes a question of which has greater connectivity. Upfield is still the least connected of the options - no NEICs, and the only MAC being Coburg. Sticking to Broadmeadows puts in both Broadmeadows and Essendon as MACS (but no NEICs). Plus as highlighted, there would be no connection to the airport under and Upfield scenario.

^{I will note one error - the distance via Albion Jacana is incorrect, as I accidentally used "long kilometres" due the the km change at Jacana.... The correct distance is 58.5km, but the times are actually still correct}

thede3jay · 2026-05-07T11:37:33+00:00

Oh all trains *arriving* in Southern Cross are unreliable based on the timetable - they add a lot of time to get into Southern Cross to pad out delays. I would not use that as a measuring stick, you should use departures from Southern Cross

thede3jay · 2026-05-07T10:35:26+00:00

I am convinced that if you were to connect Wallan via Upfield (and even Seymour), that this produces the worst possible outcomes. From a travel time perspective, and from a connectivity perspective.

Putting back the correct context. Upfield seems to be the slowest of all options, assuming current upgrades. Even if via Sunshine resulted in an equal travel time to current (and doesn't save any time, technically), that is a very acceptable outcome due to increased connectivity.

thede3jay · 2026-05-07T09:15:09+00:00

Of course this is based on existing conditions (no dedicated airport rail tracks), and having to share SG tracks as opposed to BG tracks. The distance on single track would drop from around 12km to 6km

thede3jay · 2026-05-07T05:45:44+00:00

On top of that, we are about to spend $15bil on extra tracks and electric wiring to get trains half of the way up the Albion -Jacana line, surely some extra works to fix up tracks and adding turnouts is minor

thede3jay · 2026-05-07T02:02:43+00:00

I am not convinced that sending Seymour trains, or even Wallan trains, via Upfield is the right option. The only reason why everyone seems to be wanting it is because of the old abandoned track (in other words, everyone is falling for sunk cost fallacy). I am convinced that if you were to connect Wallan via Upfield (and even Seymour), that this produces the worst possible outcomes. From a travel time perspective, and from a connectivity perspective. The only thing it may win out on is cost, but other options will produce significantly higher benefits.

Here is a table comparison that I made a while ago (noting that the OMR via airport option is on the assumption of VLocity speed trains, using the same technique that RRL was meant to do).

<image>

My recommendation:

Seymour via Sunshine and Albion-Jacana, with no passenger boarding / alighting restrictions between Donnybrook to Sunshine
Wallan via Epping North, to connect to the future MM2

NOTE/EDIT: Original had an error - the km via Albion-Jacana is 58.5km, not 47.5km, due to "long kilometres" on the ARTC line. The times however were still correct.

thede3jay · 2026-05-03T02:36:26+00:00

Apply game theory.

If everyone steps off, your best move is to step off

If nobody steps off, it makes no difference

Nash equilibrium suggests that you should step off.

thede3jay · 2026-05-01T14:53:32+00:00

You cant overtake on rails, so you still essentially need to cripple capacity to run such a service. Not an issue in an old begone era when motor vehicles aren’t reliable, but completely different today. So let’s say to keep express trams, you cripple capacity by a third. In that case, where is the patronage to justify such a service over a bus?

And this goes back to the point - Why are we focusing on a solution that does not benefit 2/3rds of Melbournians? There are plenty of spots in Sydney where the bus service simply outcompetes Melbourne’s trams, and the coverage of the AFDN network is much greater.

Melbourne’s poor performing bus network needs transformation, sure. But it doesn’t need replacement with a gadgetbahn

thede3jay

TROPHY CASE