The federal government has given its strongest indication yet it will not adopt a policy to restrict negative gearing, as new polling by a Labor-linked firm shows less than half of voters back the idea.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Treasurer Jim Chalmers last month left the door open to revisiting the tax reform rejected by voters in 2016 and 2019, after Nine newspapers reported the Treasury had been asked to draft options.

But within days the PM was talking down the idea by saying it would not help to boost supply, which is Labor’s core housing policy focus, and by late last week Treasurer Jim Chalmers was saying the same.

“One of the reasons we’re not going down the path of … abolishing negative gearing or abolishing the capital gains tax discount, is because we haven’t been convinced that it would have positive consequences for supply,” he said on Thursday.

Polling provided to the ABC and conducted by the firm Talbot Mills, which has previously done work for federal Labor and NZ Labour, shows solid support for changes to negative gearing and the capital gains tax discount, which can in combination give a substantial tax benefit to property investors.

But both ideas were less popular than policies to release more land for development and to give more money to first home buyers.

Asked their views on a range of measures to “address housing affordability,” roughly half of the 1,000 respondents favoured a “limit” on negative gearing, with a quarter opposed and a quarter unsure.

Halving the capital gains tax from 50 per cent to 25 per cent, which Labor also proposed in previous elections, was popular with 57 per cent of voters and opposed by 22 per cent.

Encouraging local and state governments to release more land for development was favoured by 68 per cent of voters and first home buyer support favoured by 73 per cent.

“While still not far off achieving majority support, limiting negative gearing appears to be a somewhat less appealing approach,” David Talbot of Talbot Mills said.

“There’s a strong appetite to address the supply issues constraining the housing market.”

Labor has embraced a supply-side housing policy over its term in government, leading a federation-wide effort to build more houses which has seen state Labor governments in Victoria and NSW bite off ambitious planning reforms.

But the wording of the polling question, which refers to “releasing more land for development,” may also encourage the Coalition, after it last week launched a supply policy focused on “greenfield” urban expansion rather than higher density “infill” in existing suburbs.

While housing economists such as Peter Tulip and Brendan Coates say it is unlikely the housing crisis could be solved without at least some infill, the objections of locals loom as an obstacle to that approach.

Some within Labor remain supportive of negative gearing reform, with one backbencher saying pockets of strong support for the idea could matter more than overall support, especially among young voters.

But several Labor sources said the shift in the public language of senior ministers was a sign negative gearing was almost certain not to feature at the next election.

Labor will also have to decide whether to take Help To Buy, its first home buyer support scheme, to the next election if it fails to pass the Senate before then.

The Coalition will campaign with a combination of supply and demand supports, promising to let first home buyers draw down on their superannuation.