Prime Minister Anthony Albanese responds to negative gearing question with jab at independent MP Dai Le

The Prime Minister dismissed a question from Ms Le, declaring: “This isn’t a council, this is a serious Parliament”.

The comment led to a sharp response from the member for Fowler, who also serves as a Fairfield City councillor.

“I think the Prime Minister should have some respect in the House,” Ms Le said, to roars of agreement from the opposition benches.

The exchange came after Ms Le had asked about the Albanese government’s negative gearing changes.

Under Labor’s changes, existing properties can no longer be negatively geared unless they were owned prior to Budget night, in which case they will continue to be subject to the prior tax treatment.  

Rising to her feet on Monday, Ms Le asked the Prime Minister to provide an assurance that no one had gained financial benefit from prior knowledge of the “market-sensitive measures”.

“Can the Prime Minister give the House a strong assurance that no government MP or their close relations used prior knowledge of those changes for private financial benefit before they are made public?” she asked.

The question caused uproar on the government benches, with Manager of Government Business Tony Burke rising to argue the question was out of order.

“The rules are the question can’t contain argument, inference, imputation, insults. It’s all there,” the Labor MP said.

The member for the Western Sydney seat of Fowler then attempted to rephrase the question.

“Can the Prime Minister give the House assurance that this information was properly safeguarded before the budget and were held so that no one connected to or in government was able to act on it for private financial benefit?” she asked.

After being instructed by House Speaker Milton Dick to ignore the question’s second half, Mr Albanese challenged Ms Le to be upfront about the accusations she was making.

“The Member for Fowler, if she’s got a suggestion or an allegation about anyone in the chamber, she should actually say what it is – and preferably say it outside (where defamation laws apply),” he said.

Following his dismissive comment about the parliament not being a local council, Mr Albanese attempted to backpedal by declaring “no one’s done more for local government in this house than me”.

The Prime Minister then went on to state the government had been “very careful” in putting the policy through the same Expenditure Review Committee processes that are standard for both sides of politics.

“That is something that we have in this country that we should cherish, and we should honour; not denigrate to try to score a cheap point,” he said.

Ms Le defended her question later on Monday, describing it as a “simple question about transparency and trust”.

“I wanted the PM to assure the Australian public that these significant changes to our CGT and negative gearing, which cause disruption to the markets, were done with safeguards and that no one in government acted on it, to benefit themselves or those connected to them, prior to the budget,” she said.

The member for Fowler said the fact the Prime Minister could not provide that assurance was a “matter of concern”.

“It was disappointing that, rather than directly addressing the issue, he chose to take a swipe at local councils and councillors, to divert the importance of his role to answer a simple question,” she said.