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Labor leader Anthony Albanese has not ruled out changes to negative gearing and capital gains tax ahead of the next election.
The revelation comes as federal Labor begins a two-day conference to discuss future policies to win over voters.
Mr Albanese was on Tuesday asked if reforms to negative gearing and capital gains tax were “dead and buried” under a Labor government.
“We don’t have plans until we announce them,” Mr Albanese told ABC AM.
“We have already said, for example, that we won’t have any changes to the franking credits regime.
“(We) will announce a comprehensive plan for any changes that we intend to make to the tax system before the next election.”
Mr Albanese said the party had learnt from its mistakes in 2019 when it retained and “then built on” its losing platform from 2016.
RELATED: Electric vehicles: Anthony Albanese says Scott Morrison ‘dared’ manufacturers to leave
“We haven’t done that (this time),” he told reporters on Tuesday.
“We will be announcing our proactive policies in the lead-up to the election. If we don’t announce them, they’re not our policies.”
The opposition has already announced that it will establish a $15bn national reconstruction fund to boost domestic manufacturing of products, including cars, trains and ships.
“We need to have a plan for a future made in Australia,” Mr Albanese said.
“The pandemic has identified some of the strengths in society … but also some of our weaknesses.”
Richard Marles, who has been tasked with shaping Labor’s post-COVID reconstruction plan, said Australians were facing the “biggest deindustrialisation in the nation’s history”.
He said the fund would focus on “turning science into jobs” by focusing on well-paid jobs within companies that innovate.
“When Australia lost the ability to make cars, when this government goaded the car industry offshore, we lost our most complex hi-tech manufacturing,” he said.
“What COVID-19 has exposed is that all of that means we have lost industrial sovereign capability. We need to restore all of that, and that’s what the national reconstruction fund will do.”
Mr Albanese accused the government of “daring” Australia’s car manufacturers to leave after the iconic Holden went defunct in 2020.
But with car giant General Motors announcing it would phase out petrol cars by 2035, Labor has stressed the job opportunities offered by green technology.
“I think there’s great opportunity for the automotive industry going forward … There’s got to be a great opportunity for electric vehicles,” he said.
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