The Prime Minister's political attack stands in stark contrast to that of Treasurer Scott Morrison, who has endured a torrid week in a series of back-to-back speeches and interviews in which he has not revealed much in the way of new details about the government's tax plans, attracting much criticism.

But Opposition Leader Bill Shorten hit back late on Friday, describing the comments as "desperate stuff from a Prime Minister who has broken his promise to provide 'new economic leadership'."

"The consequence of it will be a decline in property prices, every home owner in Australia has a lot to fear from Bill Shorten."

"The Labor Party's negative gearing policy and its wind back on the capital gains discount – its increase in tax on capital gains – is a very dangerous one. It's been very, very poorly thought out," Mr Turnbull said.

The Prime Minister said the Labor policy would effectively remove all would-be investors in existing properties from the market, leaving only people looking to buy a family home.

That, in turn, would mean that up to 30 per cent of would be purchasers of a property would be removed from the market for existing properties and "if you do that, you obviously drive prices down".

"If you are going to look at an issue like this, into negative gearing of residential real estate, you need to look at it very carefully. You need to use great care and attention, you need to use a scalpel, rather than an axe.What Bill Shorten has done is he has set out to smash the residential housing market."

Pressed for details of the Coalition's negative gearing policy - it is said to be considering either a cap on the number of properties that can be negatively geared, or a cap on the total dollar amount that can be deducted - Mr Turnbull declined to give specifics.

"We are not going to run our tax reform agenda in a political way, what we are looking at is a whole range of measures across the board. But I can tell you the big difference between our approach and Bill Shorten's is that we will think the consequences through."