Read My Lips (and I'll Lie to You)

How can you tell when a politician is lying?

Their lips are moving!

I know it's an old joke and not a very good one, but it's so close to truth that it's not funny.

It's especially not funny if you are someone with an investment property bought to secure your financial future.

Just last week, the Prime Minister refused to confirm the suggestion that his government was considering changing the existing negative gearing or Capital Gains Tax (CGT) regimes.

This week, the government has selectively leaked that information that it has been investigating exactly that.

This is a familiar technique for politicians.

Someone in the government would have supplied the initial question to a friendly journalist. Then, this week, another government source would have leaked the research.

It's a contrived two-step process to soften up and test the response to see if they can get away with introducing a new policy.

The PM was still in denial mode yesterday. The Australian reporting:

Anthony Albanese has declined to rule out changes to negative gearing and capital gains tax exemptions and said that he “value[s] the public service” when asked about a report that his government had commissioned advice on changing the tax arrangements.

The Treasurer, who has a PhD thesis in Paul Keating, backed him up.

Jim Chalmers has rejected that an overhaul of negative gearing or capital gains tax is included among its suite of housing policy measures.

"We’ve got a housing policy and that’s not in it,” the Treasurer told reporters in Brisbane on Wednesday. 

Treasury looks at all kinds of policy options all of the time, it’s not unusual for the public service … to examine issues that are being speculated about in the public or in the parliament. 

That’s how a good public service operates.”

It's a neat one-two of 'nothing to see here; it's just the public service doing whatever they like.'