Chalmers defends housing reforms as market falls exceed Treasury predictions

In the long arc of Australian housing policy, the Albanese government's reforms to negative gearing and capital gains tax represent a deliberate wager — that short-term market pain can unlock long-term affordability for a generation increasingly shut out of home ownership. Treasurer Jim Chalmers now finds himself defending that wager as Sydney and Melbourne prices fall well beyond Treasury's own projections, caught between the Opposition's accusations of engineered economic harm and the quiet endorsement of a former Labor prime minister who sees the disruption as overdue. The debate unfolding