Page 3586 - Week 12 - Thursday, 19 September 1991
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income, because the landlords, as I said, will impose, if they can - and I am sure they will be able to - the full burden of this tax upon the tenants.
All in all, whilst nobody enjoys raising taxes - I am sure that even our Treasurer does not enjoy raising taxes - the fact is that governments require and demand that revenue be received to pay for the various services that we all enjoy. And, whilst I do not particularly like the idea of passing this tax on to the community, I am afraid that it is one of those painful experiences, like going to the dentist, and we are just going to have to sit back and say, "Unfortunately, it is a fact of life and we have to live with it".
MR MOORE (5.24): It seems to me that I keep hearing doublespeak. On the one hand, I hear from a large number of members - various members of the Opposition - that the market dictates, and it is a question of supply and demand, as far as rental goes. Mr Duby reiterated that landlords basically get out of rental whatever they can get out of it. There are exceptions. We all know exceptional landlords who do not do that; who are very happy with the quality of their tenants and who retain them in that way. But, by and large, landlords will put up the rent as they advertise for a new tenant, and they will look at the market to see what they can get. So, that is the first part.
They said that that applied to interest rates. So, it did not matter whether interest rates were going up or down; basically, the landlords will try to get what they can, or whatever the tenants will pay. And that relies, as Mr Humphries put it, on supply and demand. When we have a broader supply the rents will go down. Then they do a sudden jump. Their sudden jump was: However, if we put on a land tax, that is going to put rents up.
Now, for the first time for a long time, as far as I have heard, we suddenly have landlords all over Canberra with a social conscience who are very, very worried about their poor tenants who will have to be landed with paying some extra money to carry this tax. It is really terrible, we hear, and this is reiterated, of course, by the Real Estate Institute, which has suddenly taken on the role of looking after tenants, and is very concerned about their welfare.
Certainly, they came to me and asked me what I felt about the land tax. I said, "I am sorry to have to put it to you this way, Bruno, but I think it is a great tax, as taxes go. This is the one". I do not accept that this tax is going to be a major influence on rentals at all. It may, in the short term, provide landlords with an excuse to say to their tenants, "Tough; I am going to put up your rents". In the short term it will have that impact. I think that is what Mr Duby was talking about when he commented. He gave a rather careful explanation of the whole situation, which I am inclined to agree with - especially his comments on threshold levels and those issues.
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