In Tuesday’s federal budget, the government is widely expected to bring in changes to how investment properties are taxed, including negative gearing and the capital gains tax discount.

Ever since the Albanese government’s re-election, there have been growing calls to tax landlords more.

In March, a Senate committee report on the capital gains tax discount concluded:

there is evidence that the concessions provided by the capital gains tax discount, in combination with negative gearing, have skewed the ownership of housing away from owner-occupiers and towards investors.

That suggests rented housing is under-taxed, compared to owner-occupied housing. But is that actually true?

What landlords pay that homeowners don’t

Some federal and state taxes apply only to rented housing, and not to owner-occupied housing.

At a federal level, this includes personal income tax on net rental income and personal tax on capital gains from housing. At a state level, there are land taxes on investment properties. Owner-occupied homes are exempt.

I’ve gone back through a decade of data from the Australian Taxation Office and the Australian Bureau of Statistics to estimate how much revenue these extra taxes on rented housing raised.

In 2022–23 (the most recent year we have complete tax statistics), I calculated landlords paid around A$500 million in personal income tax on their net rent income. However, their interest deductions were unusually low in 2022–23, because interest rates were unusually low.

To get a clearer idea of what happens under more typical circumstances, with higher interest rates, I calculated annual averages of tax payments, using tax data from 2013–14 through to 2022–23.

Over that decade, interest deductions were higher than in 2022–23, leading to net rent income being negative. As a result, instead of paying some tax on their net rent income as happened in 2022–23, landlords typically saved $400 million a year in tax from their net income.

This reflects the negative gearing issue that the Senate report raised concerns about.

However, landlords also paid other taxes over the decade – and that’s where the biggest difference with owner-occupiers emerged.

An extra $69 billion over a decade

From 2013–13 to 2022–23, I found landlords paid an average of $3.7 billion a year in capital gains tax, even after the 50% discount allowed for capital gains.

They also paid around $3.6 billion in state government land tax, which I was able to estimate by obtaining unpublished Australian Bureau of Statistics land tax data.

Allowing for all three taxes, landlords paid a total of $6.9 billion in a typical year from 2013–14 to 2022–23, as shown in the table above.

While owner-occupiers do pay some other taxes, such as the goods and services tax on new housing and local government rates, landlords pay those other taxes as well.

So the bottom line is that landlords have paid an extra $69 billion in taxes over the past decade, which owner-occupiers didn’t have to pay.

Renters end up paying higher rents

Do landlords pass that extra tax burden through to renters? The authoritative 2010 Henry Tax Review concluded it was likely they do:

Since owner-occupied housing is exempt, land tax on residential investment properties is probably passed through to renters as higher rents.

While the Henry Review was specifically referring to land tax, the same economic logic applies to the other extra taxes on rented housing.

We can see how significant this extra tax burden is by comparing the annual amount of extra tax – around $6.9 billion a year – to the 10-year average for the value of actual rents, $47.9 billion.

If those costs were being passed on in full, that would mean around 14% of housing rents in the past decade would have been due to taxes that apply to rented housing, but not to owner-occupied housing.

Tackling housing affordability in the right order

Extra taxes being passed onto renters are regressive, because renters have lower average incomes than owner occupiers.

The most recent Bureau of Statistics data we have, from 2019–20, showed average gross weekly income for all households was $2,329. But for renter households, it was only $1,908.

To help both renters and would-be owner-occupiers with housing affordability, far greater national reform is needed beyond how we tax property owners.

As former prime minister John Howard has observed since retiring, the planning policies of both local and state governments

avoid policy decisions that might reduce the value of the existing housing stock in an area […] The interests of current home owners are always preferred to those of new entrants.

While politically difficult, it’s in the national interest for those planning policies to change to increase the space available for housing. That would increase national income and reduce inequality.

In the meantime, the first priority for housing tax reform should be to better share the existing tax burden between renters and owner-occupiers.

More than a decade ago, the Henry Tax Review recommended broadening the base for land tax to include owner-occupiers, similar to local government rates which are a more efficient tax. That could fund a substantial reduction in tax rates for land tax.

It would also finally mean land tax was no longer an extra cost on renters compared to owner-occupiers.

So first we should reduce rents by reforming land tax. Under lower rents, it would become reasonable to tighten up negative gearing in future federal budgets.

Read more: Negative gearing tax breaks could finally be tightened in the May budget. What options are on the table?

Chris Murphy is not a landlord or a renter.

There’s a growing awareness policy works best when shaped by the people and communities who have lived through the issues it aims to address.

If we don’t listen to and learn from those who have experienced issues such as homelessness, family violence, distress or trauma, we risk building systems that misunderstand the harm and the hope within those realities.

Across social and public sectors, new roles are being created for people with what is often called “lived expertise”.

These are people whose personal experience informs work to improve policy, practice and research. They are advising government departments, helping to design services, informing inquiries and guiding community initiatives.

But while lived experience is often invited into the room, we still know little about what it is like to work from that experience across distinct issue areas – and about the emotional toll, risks and challenges of trying to make change inside systems that actively resist it.

To explore this further, we spoke with ten lived experience leaders as part of our research, released today.

Deep commitment

The lived experience leaders we spoke with work alongside a range of communities – for example, First Nations peoples, incarcerated women and girls, those experiencing mental distress, young people, people from LGBTIQA+ communities and those impacted by family violence.

Our research revealed that these lived experience leaders are deeply committed to structural change. They carry hard-won knowledge and a strong determination to ensure others have better experiences.

One told us:

I came in with the motivation that there were so many people that this had happened to, and I wanted to change it.

Another said:

I don’t feel accountable to dominant systems […] What I feel accountable to feels greater than me – accountable to my ancestors and to those who come after me.

Influencing from the inside and outside

These leaders work across, between and beyond institutions – sometimes from the inside to influence change, other times building power outside them.

As one leader said:

I believe we need to build power ourselves and then the system will come to us for the answers, rather than us trying to fit into their structures and processes.

Moving between these spaces is not easy.

Another leader said:

We hold one shield that’s fending off the system and another shield that’s fending off the organisations we have to work with, and then another that’s defending victim-survivors. Then we don’t have anything left to protect ourselves.

Leaders are often drawing on collective experience, not just their own, and feel deep accountability to others, particularly those who share experiences of injustice and harm.

As one said:

I am accountable to the people at the end or the bottom – to service users and the people who have the most to lose.

Their approach intentionally challenges dominant hierarchies. They lead alongside others, guided by the quality of relationships they build – and by care, accountability and connection. One person told us:

I would never speak about women and girls in cages if I’m not being held accountable by the women and girls in cages […] Otherwise, you’re operating from a position of “power over” – and that’s not true leadership.

Hazards, harms and hope

Lived experience leadership can also carry risks. Many leaders spoke about being invited to contribute or “have a seat at the table” without being genuinely heard, or seeing action taken from their insights.

Participation often feels like a compliance exercise. Tokenism, they said, is still common. One person told us:

Something we don’t talk about enough is the price we pay for sharing our lived and living experience.

Another said:

We choose to do it because we genuinely care about people we’ve never met – because we want people to live, because we want the systems that continue to fail them to change.

The toll that takes – the exhaustion, the trauma that’s constantly brought up, the feelings of not being valued or considered – and yet still choosing to fight each day for the right reasons, is more than anyone could ever possibly imagine.

And yet, many leaders also spoke about hope. One person told us:

I do have some sort of hope most days […] This is love for, and belief in, our community. My hope is kept alive through contact with and service to my community.

Where to from here?

Our research shows lived experience leadership holds real potential to address the complex problems traditional approaches struggle to solve.

But this potential can only be fully realised when institutions recognise their own capacity to cause harm and begin to share power with those most affected.

Real progress means more than inviting lived experience into rooms or at tables – it means taking responsibility, acting on what’s heard and being changed by it.

As one leader urged:

Sometimes we have to demand the impossible […] Let those with institutional power worry about how they’re going to hold us back […] Most of the time, you sit at the table because collaboration is essential – but sometimes, you do have to flip it.

Lived experience leadership isn’t about earning a seat at someone else’s table.

It’s about questioning who built the table in the first place – and creating new spaces where power, decision-making and design are genuinely shared.

Morgan Cataldo's research was funded by the Paul Ramsay Foundation.

Kelsey Dole's research was funded by the Paul Ramsay Foundation.

Perrie Ballantyne's research was funded by the Paul Ramsay Foundation.

Robyn Martin's research was funded by the Paul Ramsay Foundation.

Suzi Hayes' research was funded by the Paul Ramsay Foundation.

Conflict in the Persian Gulf is disrupting fertiliser supplies, and Africa’s food systems stand to lose.

Agrifood systems (the activities that connect the people, investments and decisions involved in producing and delivering food and agricultural goods) rely on a steady flow of inputs like fertiliser, along with markets, infrastructure and policy and trade decisions.

These food systems can absorb shocks and find new ways to keep supplies flowing under pressure. But they are also sensitive. A disruption in one part of the system has an impact on others, as the conflict in Iran that erupted in late February 2026 shows clearly.

Read more: Iran has a powerful new tool in the Strait of Hormuz that it can leverage long after the war

This is how the war on Iran affects sub-Saharan African farmers and food systems: the Gulf countries (which include Iran) are the biggest exporter globally of fertiliser ingredients. Iran alone is the fourth biggest global exporter of urea, a key ingredient in fertiliser - and one of the cheapest suppliers. Nigeria, Ghana, Togo, Kenya, Tanzania and North Africa all buy urea from Iran.

Qatar is another key urea producer and exporter but stopped making urea in early March 2026 because it needs gas to do so - and its gas plants were hit by Iranian missiles.

Shipping in the narrow Strait of Hormuz shipping channel next to Iran is down by 95% since the start of the war. This means the fertiliser that is still being made in Gulf countries has been prevented from leaving the region.

This is bad news for sub-Saharan Africa which imports about 80% of the fertiliser it uses. This comes from countries including Russia,, Europe, Ukraine, India, China and the Gulf states. Malawi, for example, imports 52% of its fertiliser from the Gulf. Morocco, Nigeria, South Africa also import ingredients from the Gulf states and use it to make fertiliser that they export.

Read more: Has the Strait of Hormuz emerged as Iran’s most powerful form of deterrence?

Fertiliser prices have already increased. And, unlike oil, there is no internationally coordinated strategic reserve for fertiliser. When the supply is disrupted, it stays disrupted.

I am a researcher and practitioner who looks at how evidence and policy can be used to make better decisions in food systems and agriculture. Recently, I was part of a team that investigated how to end hunger and all forms of malnutrition through changing the agrifood system so that nutritious food becomes more available, affordable, or accessible to poor and often rural communities.

We are especially interested in the kinds of interventions that attract investment from both the private and public sectors.

Read more: Africa’s superfood heroes – from teff to insects – deserve more attention

Our research found that food in Africa is often available but not affordable, safe, or diverse enough to make up healthy diets. For example, over the past 50 years government policies have pushed subsidies, price incentives and procurement programmes towards growing staple crops (maize, wheat, rice). But on their own, these crops are not very nutrient-dense. Focusing mainly on them means that more nutrient-dense foods have been crowded out.

Our research found a number of ways that Africa’s agrifood systems can provide more nutritious foods in future. This can also happen when fertiliser supplies are limited. We highlight some of them below.

From pandemic to war to Hormuz: Africa’s fertiliser shocks

Fertiliser disruptions and the damage to agrifood systems in Africa have happened before.

Between 2020 and 2024, fertiliser supply chains were strained by COVID-19 and then the war in Ukraine. African farmers absorbed those shocks through reducing the amount of fertiliser they used on their crops. But this led to lower yields, lower earnings and tighter household budgets.

Read more: Russia’s war with Ukraine risks fresh pressure on fertiliser prices

It’s important to remember that fertiliser supplies are entangled with decades of subsidy policy, public investment and debates about what kind of agriculture African governments should be promoting. They’re highly contested and politicised, shaped by history and power as much as by agronomic evidence and household economic choices.

The current threat of shortages is only part of the picture.

Ten ways for African countries to cope using less fertiliser

The food systems in Africa that survive the fertiliser crisis linked to the Iran war will be those that put in place nutrition-focused programmes and continue investing in innovations that reduce dependence on fertiliser.

Our report identifies ten high-impact interventions that improve nutrition and dietary outcomes. Several are particularly relevant right now:

• Farmers should start growing fruit, vegetables and pulses, and farming with trees (agroforestry). This improves the health of the soil and produces nutrient-dense food.

Read more: Indigenous trees might be the secret to climate resilient dairy farming in Benin, says this new study

• Home gardens can improve diets and household food security, if people get training and nutrition education.

• Sustainable aquaculture (fish) and livestock farming, including poultry, boosts production and protein consumption.

• Bio-fortified crops, such as high-iron beans grown in Rwanda and vitamin A-rich, orange-fleshed sweet potatoes in Mozambique, build nutrition directly into the crop during production. Because they contain more nutrients, they don’t waste as much fertiliser.

• Storage and distribution infrastructure reduces spoilage of food. It also improves the quality of food.

Read more: Scientists are breeding super-nutritious crops to help solve global hunger

• Foods can be fortified (have essential vitamins and minerals added) when they are being processed. These improve nutrition without requiring any changes in how food is grown.

• Food and agricultural handling practices must be introduced to keep crops safe to eat.

• Nutrition education helps people make better everyday food choices so that, when food is available, people eat more varied and nutritious diets.

• Social protection programmes, such as cash transfers and food vouchers, help families during times when prices rise.

• Providing school meals specially designed to be nutritious offers a high return on investment.

What needs to happen next

Our research emphasises that these interventions can only work as a bundle or package of support. Gender matters too; our research found that women don’t always get to eat nutrient dense food even when there is more available at home.

These interventions represent what we know works today. But governments and researchers should look beyond these too. For example, scientists at the Centre for Research on Programmable Plant Systems (including scientists at Cornell University) are engineering specialised plants known as “reporter” plants. A reporter plant is typically placed strategically in a field of crops to act as an early warning system.

They have developed a tomato plant, for example, that turns vivid red when soil nitrogen levels drop to critically low levels. This plant gives farmers precise, real-time information about what their fields need.

Tools like these could transform that relationship farmers have with fertiliser: reducing waste, cutting costs, and building a form of fertiliser intelligence into the farming system itself.

Jaron Porciello receives funding from BMZ Germany and Gates Foundation.