They will introduce the risk free rate of return on rental property. The government has been softening the public up for so long that they will do something here and this looks most likely. I don't think this will be a vote loser overall, in fact it will probably go down pretty well with a lot of people who see property investors as greedy rich tax avoiding b#stards (they may be right in a lot of cases but PI's aren't the only ones, just easy targets).

They will make a big deal out of NOT introducing any property tax on owner occupied property but this may apply to second properties including rentals.

The really interesting thing will be what happens with GST. That could well be a vote destroyer. Particularly for low and middle income earners who are unlikely to see any benefit from tax relief on the upper brackets. I would have thought that a lot of middle income earners vote National but certainly increased GST would be more than offset by tax relief for a lot of their support base.