Labor is targeting property tycoon "Aussie" John Symond, accusing the multimillionaire of doing the bidding of Malcolm Turnbull to undermine the opposition's negative gearing proposals.
And it says Mr Symond, and many of the major real estate firms campaigning to retain the status quo, are hardly "grassroots", having been generous donors to the Coalition tipping in some $450,000 in the past decade compared to around $20,000 to Labor in the same period.
The attack came as fresh questions also arose over the Coalition's proposed company tax cut to 25 per cent from over a decade, with a new analysis suggesting the most direct beneficiary would not be Australia but the American tax man - the IRS.
Mr Symond appeared on Seven's Sunrise program on Sunday to warn of a potential recession if Labor's plan to limit negative gearing to freshly constructed dwellings from July 1, 2017, goes ahead.
"Who knows? I don't know whether prices will drop 10 per cent, 20 per cent or more," he said.
"It is frightening and it will frighten others . . . and it creates this stampede. And that's my concern that there could be a glut of properties come on the market, force the prices down, and then all of a sudden it could be Armageddon with the housing industry that's propped up the Australian economy the last four years."
But Labor's shadow parliamentary treasury secretary and western Sydney MP, Ed Husic, poured scorn on the Symond comments, calling them "outrageous".
"It's a shame that Malcolm Turnbull and John Symond have teamed up to look after their interests, having done very well for themselves, when there are so many people in my part of Sydney for example, who are trying to buy a first home but cannot," he said.
Mr Symond is no average home-owner. As far back as 2007, Sydney's The Daily Telegraph described his purchase of his current four-storey Point Piper mansion as ". . . the nation's most expensive bachelor pad, a $50 million monument to John 'We'll Save You' Symond and the great Australian dream of home ownership".
Fairfax Media reported in October, shortly after the leadership change from Tony Abbott, that Mr Symond had hosted a lavish, $2500-a-head fundraising dinner for the Liberal Party at his Harbourside home.
At last Friday's people's forum in north-western Sydney , Mr Turnbull specifically cited Mr Symond as an authority on the property market.
"As you've heard today from the Real Estate Institute, from John Symond - from Aussie John - that is going to have the impact of putting up rents and reducing the amount of rental property," he said.
A campaign against Labor's change by many of the country's most prominent real estate firms and Coalition supporters uses a website to warn of "disastrous consequences" if negative gearing is crimped.
"Our industry participants pride themselves on being apolitical, but this time, the issue is far too important not to speak out," it states.
But not all its readers are convinced of its claimed impartiality. The first post by a reader called Michael, dated May 11, described the website as "a lot of biased claptrap, spoken entirely from the point of self-interest"
"I assume you believe your 'unbiased' views to be more credible than those of the RBA, which says that the current rules are actually harming the economy? BTW, I do have a negatively geared property."
Meanwhile, an analysis of the Turnbull government's company tax cut by the left-aligned Australian Institute warned that because US firms operating in Australia pay the Australian rate here but merely top-up the difference in the US - currently 5 per cent because the US rate is 35 per cent compared to Australia's at 30 per cent - a drop to 25 per cent will see less tax paid here and more paid there. It says the boon to the IRS could amount to billions when the 25 per cent rate is finally delivered.
The Australia Institute's executive director, Ben Oquist, said the economic allure of the company tax cut proposed in the May budget, had been exposed as wishful thinking because it would actually cost the Australian tax base "reaching and estimated US$732 (approx AUD$999) million per year when fully implemented in 2026-27 and a gift to the IRS of US$8.07 billion over the succeeding decade.
"A key beneficiary of the proposed company tax cuts is the American tax office. Various American companies operating here will not benefit - they will simply pay the difference in the United States," Mr Oquist said.
"American firms operating in Australia will not invest more, employ more or be any more competitive after Australia cuts the company tax - they will simply pay less tax here and more tax in the US."
