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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2000 Week 7 Hansard (29 June) . . Page.. 2268 ..

MR CORBELL (continuing):

ago. Why are we retrospectively allowing someone who made a purchase decision as late as December 20 last year on a unit worth over a quarter of a million dollars to have their stamp duty waived? I would be interested in the Treasurer's response on this issue.

The Treasurer did provide some information during the budget examination, the estimates process, but I would be interested to hear his justification. I hope the Treasurer will take note of this point; I hope he will acknowledge this in his speech. I hope he will tell why we are retrospectively allowing people who purchased inner-city townhouses and units worth up to a quarter of a million dollars to have this stamp duty waived. Why are we doing that when the purchase has already occurred? It is not as though we are encouraging more sales, because this relates to contracts of sale entered into as late as 20 December last year. So we are not exactly providing an incentive for people to purchase, because they have already done that. So why on earth extend the waiver?

I would have thought that if you are going to use a waiver you would use it to encourage a sale or encourage economic activity in a particular area. But this is actually a waiver for people who have already purchased. It would be interesting to know just how many units are affected in that regard.

The other issue, which is just as important, relates to whether we should be providing an extension of the stamp duty waiver at all. This brings us to the broader question of the Civic revitalisation program. We certainly have not raised any significant concern about the exemption from the change of use charge for the Civic revitalisation program. Exemption from the change in use charge has enabled those buildings to be refurbished in order to bring activity back into areas of the city which were suffering. That is a sensible use of the waiver of CUC in a specific policy initiative aimed at achieving a particular outcome, and it is the only example I can think of where this government has used waiver, reduction or exemption from a CUC in a sensible way.

Generally this government's approach to the application of a change of use charge has been to say, "We will provide an exemption or a reduced rate at 75 per cent, and then one at 50 per cent, across the board. It does not matter where the development or redevelopment activity is occurring, we are going to give you an exemption. It does not matter about the quality of development, or the policy outcome, we are going to give you an exemption or we are going to give you a reduced rate." That is not the way you use a change of use charge. Indeed, it is important to acknowledge that the Civic revitalisation program is an example of the way we should be using a waiver or a reduced rate of change of use charge.

Stamp duty is another issue. There are many Canberrans who struggle to get together the $10,000, $15,000 or $20,000 that they need to pay for the deposit on the property they are purchasing and the stamp duty. Stamp duty is one of the largest obstacles to purchasing a property. By and large, these people are not purchasing properties that are worth a quarter of a million dollars, let alone $350,000.

I would argue that if someone is prepared to pay a quarter of a million dollars or more for an inner-city unit, they are quite capable of paying the relatively small extra amount in stamp duty. This is not the sort of concession that is needed as part of the Civic revitalisation program. Exemption from change of use charge, yes; stamp duty waiver, no. This does not seem appropriate and it does not seem particularly equitable because it

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