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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2004 Week 10 Hansard (Wednesday, 25 August 2004) . . Page.. 4113 ..

number of dependants, the government claims that it has no idea how many home buyers who received the concession have dependants. I suspect that maybe they have stopped collecting this information because they know that it does not look as good as it should.

The current limit of $273,000 leaves families with several children unable to find an adequate property that will fit their family in it that attracts a full exemption even though they could qualify on the income test. They can access some concessions but it is families who I think most need a full exemption; so the current scheme is not as good as it could be. I know of many people faced with the decision today of whether or not they should start a family or whether or not they should buy a house because, looking at the cost over the long term, they recognise that at the moment they cannot afford to do both.

If we actually look at our concession schemes and recognise that families are having trouble entering the housing market, then maybe people might not be forced to make those life-changing decisions that are unfair to put on people who are hearing the news every day that we need to do more to help the population into the future but also to do more to help people have their own house. There is a lot that needs to be done. We need a realistic property value threshold that relates to family size, so low-income families can get a concession and a home that is big enough for them and a scheme that supports those trying to enter the housing market.

Families with two kids should be eligible for a concession on a three-bedroom house and families with three kids for a concession on a four-bedroom house, so that house size is actually taken into account and related to the size of the family and the number of dependent children. That way low-income families would be able to buy a home big enough for them.

I have written to the Treasurer in relation to this system but I have not yet received a reply. However, I hope that somewhere in the depths of the Treasury bureaucracy someone is listening and someone is thinking about how we can make a better system that gives more people a chance of realising the dream of home ownership. I recognise that the current stamp duty concession scheme is definitely better than it was but there is still work to be done.

MS TUCKER (10.58): I spoke at length about affordable housing issues in Canberra when, in the last sitting, we wrapped up the debate on my bill to ensure that there was affordable housing structured into Canberra and I have made the point many times in the Assembly that we have to be looking at affordability issues for people who do not have any chance ever of actually buying a home. But in terms of this debate today, the Greens of course welcome measures to assist first home buyers. These incentives from the budget this year include the sliding scale concession on stamp duties and the introduction of lower taxes on land rates at the lower end of the UV

By way of context—because what we do in the territory is in the context of a federal system—a study published in October 2003 by Judy Yates of the Australian Housing and Urban Research Institute showed that the federal subsidies and tax concessions for home buyers and home owners give greater benefits to people on high incomes, which arguably is a consistent threat through federal government policies, sadly. I was interested to see Mr Anderson say on television that he thought his constituents would be really happy with a two-tier health system and I was thinking basically the Liberal

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