The diatribe that RENT has attracted reminds me of the current...

The diatribe that RENT has attracted reminds me of the current attack on the proposals to stop negative gearing except on new builds and reduction of CGT discount by one of the biggest business grouping of rent-seekers in Australia - the property industry.

Their power is incredible, just look at the disgraceful front page of Saturdays  Weekend Australian
This lot of bludgers have increased their wealth without creating new wealth via the existing policies which perverts investment decisions causing poor allocation of resourses into non productive investments and results in reduced economic efficiency, reduced actual wealth creation, lost government revenue, increased income inequality and national economic decline which is underway with NDI down 17.5% in two years.

Any attempt that threatens them gets a pasting and RENT is no different as it threatens the incumbents

Joe Hockey only on walking out of Pairliament told the truth - Negative gearing on property has to change.
Until then he was held hostage by the rent-seeking  property industry - and  he lied and misrepresented the NG facts whilst in pairliament
But on leaving he now says he wanted to re-skew negative gearing toward new housing so there was an "incentive to add to the housing stock rather than an incentive to speculate on existing property

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http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-opinion/now-joe-hockey-says-he-wanted-to-tax-the-rich-all-along-20151021-gkeqpc.html#ixzz40CPwObZ2
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rent-seeking