Wayne Swan, the Federal Treasurer, has sent in his response to the Henry tax review, stating that Labor would never go ahead and reduce the existing concessions on negative gearing as well as capital gains tax.

As has been revealed by the latest official estimates, house prices managed to jump by as much as 20% over the past one year and critics have shared that this reinforces the need to now wind back all the tax breaks that have continued to inflate the prices of residential properties.

But the ex-New South Wales Auditor-General Tony Harris has stressed that the response sent in by Mr. Swan is definitely the wrong attitude for lifting Australia into the next league.

"It doesn't do Australia any good to have a Government which when they see these rational arguments from a very well experienced team, they give it three minutes' thought and then just ditch it", he said.

Mr. Harris has shared that according to him, the outright rejection of the recommendations put forward by Henry's review and other reforms "smacks of political cowardice and ranks this Government one of the most timid and ineffective in modern times".

While defending his decision as well as that of the Government, Mr. Swan said that all the recommendations from Henry's review were rejected as they did not fit with the Labor views and philosophy.