Babies are usually good news for politicians: they can’t speak, they are not usually well versed in current affairs, and they are one of the few demographics willing to tolerate politically motivated public displays of affection.

But as Malcolm Turnbull learned the hard way, the one exception to this rule is babies with negatively geared investment properties.

His visit to the home of 1-year-old Addison Mignacca, whose parents had just negative geared their way to buying her a house, was meant to demonstrate that everyday mums and dads in the suburbs make use of negative gearing as much as those who frequent the Melbourne Club.

What it instead highlighted was the absurdity of a system which funnels public money towards those in a position to acquire investment properties for infants, while increasing numbers of fully grown adult workers find themselves priced out of the housing market.

Try as the politicians might to hide it, negative gearing is yet another handout to the wealthy. Research by the Grattan Institute found that the richest 10 percent of income earners received almost 50 percent of the benefits from this investment perk. High income earners are also twice as likely to make use of negative gearing as those earning under $80,000. And when they do, their share in the $11 billion that is lost to negative gearing is significantly greater.

Far from Turnbull’s narrative about suburban battlers getting in on the act, the occupational groups most likely to take advantage of it are surgeons, finance managers, mining engineers and lawyers, according to the ATO.

Coincidentally these are the demographics that favour the Liberal Party. Coalition politicians themselves own an average of 2.7 properties each.

So it’s blindingly obvious why the Turnbull government is committed to continuing this multi-billion dollar handout to the rich, along with a variety of other tax perks which remain untouched in the 2016 Budget.

To its credit, Labor has responded to the Turnbull/Morrison budget by highlighting the handouts to corporations and the rich.

The problem is that, despite the occasional bout of rhetoric, Labor in office is committed to the same economic principles that the Liberals are. The ALP understands that business must be looked after and the power and privilege of the wealthy must be protected, even when that means taxpayers helping babies realise their property ownership dreams before they can even walk.

It agrees with the Liberals that more of society’s wealth should be handed over to the bosses to invest and further enrich themselves, which is why the Labor Party in government supports the privatisation of infrastructure and tax cuts for business.

So while funding for schools and hospitals is desperately needed, Labor can’t be relied on to stand up to the interests of the rich who continue to push for subsidies for business while essential public services that workers rely on are run down or cut back.

For that we need a movement outside of parliament, based on the power ordinary people have in the workplace.