Page 224 - Week 02 - Tuesday, 6 March 2007
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .
pressure on both house prices and rents. The work of the steering group will build on the land supply strategy as well as examining broad measures.
The government, unlike others, is prepared to take radical but sensible steps to address this problem. We are not prepared to make a knee-jerk response—to go for a quick, apparent fix—that may make the situation worse or deliver relief into the wrong hands.
There is a lot of commentary on the impact of taxes on housing affordability. Unfortunately and unhelpfully, for this commentary to warrant reporting in the media, to warrant a headline, it needs to be sensational. For example, the Property Council of Australia reports that so-called government costs account for $108,000, or 25 per cent, of the cost of a four-bedroom home and land package in the ACT. However, buried in the property council report, not reported to the general public, is the fact that ACT government taxes account for five per cent of the purchase price. This includes both the stamp duty on the land paid by the developer and the duty paid by the final purchaser of the home.
To get to the sensational figure of $108,000, the 25 per cent often quoted by the property council, you need to add in not only the Australian government’s goods and services tax but also the Australian government’s company tax. You need to add in the Australian government’s tax on the profits of the developer. But even adding these is not enough to get to the sensational $108,000 or 25 per cent. You then need to contrive an estimate of other government costs, which are described as including compliance-related building costs; consulting costs required to interpret planning legislation; and development costs associated with local regulatory requirements. They also include the impact of amendments to the building code of Australia.
So to get to this sensational $108,000, which the property council continues to use, you need to include the cost of ensuring that residential buildings are built to a standard acceptable to the community and then to call this a government cost. It is, at best, disingenuous to estimate associated costs in that way.
Let me assure you that the government takes the issue of housing affordability very, very seriously. It is our No 1 issue. We have already done a lot and are leaving no stone unturned in our efforts to identify and implement measures to assist Canberrans to own their own home.
DR FOSKEY (Molonglo) (4.38): I welcome this topic and appreciate the contributions of Mrs Burke and Mr Stanhope, as well as the opportunity, of course, to make a contribution myself. The affordable housing crisis in Canberra is not simply a consequence of insufficient land supply and it will not be solved by suddenly releasing more land, although land supply certainly plays a part. The key point to make is that the housing market is not a single market.
When the development application for the Metropolitan that just opened here in Civic was first approved, it was required to assist the government in ensuring a supply of affordable housing. It became clear, however, that all the units in the Metropolitan would be expensive. When the Greens asked how this assisted in supplying affordable housing, the developers argued that more top-end accommodation would free up the bottom end of the market.
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .