 Negative gearing is when you take out a loan to find investment property you rent that out but the rent that you get is less than the cost of repaying that loan and so you're actually making a loss. The great news for you is that you can claim that loss to reduce your taxable income so just by taking out investment property and actually losing money means that you can reduce the amount of tax you pay and that's basically negative gearing. So is it good or bad? Oh it's terrible. It's Australia's favourite tax brought really. That's what it is. The reason why it's bad is that it actually gives people an incentive to take out a loan to compete with people who are buying just for a house to live in so that they are in fact competing with them to buy it, rent it out and the only reason they're doing that is so they can reduce their taxable income. It is really a tax minimisation scheme disguised as a housing policy. Most of the benefits go to the wealthiest and it massively distorts housing prices. But they are investing it like it is an investment by definition buying an investment property and if you invest in any other like it's a form of business I suppose and if you invest in any other business you can claim the losses on your tax that's how it works. So these are deductions why should this be any different? Well I mean one of the big differences is if you're a small business only you've decided right I'm going to you know try and start up a business. The aim of that business said that investment is actually to make money whereas the aim of negative gearing is actually to lose money. You are not trying to make a profit. You're not trying to grow a business and improve the economy and be able to employ people. You're actually doing this to just reduce your taxable income and also the difference is we're talking about a sort of a finite number of houses in Australia so if I start up a business that's not actually preventing someone else starting up a similar business whereas using negative gearing gives people an advantage that actually reduces the opportunity of other people to own a home. Authorised by Jamie Cole, Australian Greens Canberra.