Page 2598 - Week 09 - Tuesday, 25 September 2007
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more affordable housing. That, I believe, is where the emphasis should be: an affordable housing plan.
MR SMYTH (Brindabella) (11.45): It is a shame the Treasurer is not here. As is his wont, he often wanders away when his bills are being discussed. We are not sure of the reason why. It is a pleasure to have the Minister for Tourism, Sport and Recreation here because he has some particular views on housing affordability and how it should be achieved. You only have to go back to his speech from 2 May last year, where he said:
I believe that the exemptions for home owners from capital gains and land taxes need to be looked at because they too are damaging affordability. I think it is fair to say that the price of a house in Canberra these days is a reflection of its tax-free haven status than its inherent value as a home.
In the budget debates in late August, the minister went on to say that there is an overdependence on first home owner schemes. So the real heart, the real truth—and this is why the Chief Minister is probably not here—is that the Labor Party want to get rid of these schemes because they are not interested in housing affordability.
The Minister for Planning met with the leader of the opposition at the housing affordability summit that Mr Rudd held. You can imagine the two of them in a corner saying, “Mate, the answer is capital gains tax on those bourgeois home owners. Put it back in. This is the real truth: land tax, mate. Let us see a land tax on the family home.” This is Mr Rudd, the future Prime Minister. At heart those opposite want bigger taxes; they have broken their promises. The Chief Minister said that they would be small taxing but this has not happened. Mr Mulcahy mentioned the utilities tax. All the taxes that have come on, that are affecting the ability of people to pay off their homes, are appalling.
I just want to comment on the proposal to allow first home buyers to defer the payment of conveyancing duty. At first glance, you would say, “Gee, that sounds reasonable,” but remember the old adage: time is money. Every day that you delay you pay a charge. It was trumpeted as a concession, it was trumpeted as a benefit to first home buyers. Unfortunately, it is only a concession for some people—and then it is not really a concession; it is a deferral and we are going to charge you for the honour. From our appreciation of this policy, we believe it is ill-founded because it assumes that first home buyers will have to borrow to pay their conveyancing stamp duty. We know that from a press release that the Chief Minister put out.
That is not necessarily correct. You are not getting the concession if you have not borrowed. What we do not have from the Chief Minister, despite repeated requests for it, is an understanding of what the Stanhope government is proposing. I criticised the policy when it was proposed in the 2007 budget—in particular because the assumptions behind it were not revealed and the rate of interest was not disclosed. The Chief Minister said that I was wrong, that this new policy was intended to enable first home buyers to save around $2,000. The Chief Minister has consistently failed to say—the challenge is here, Chief Minister, to come back to the chamber to guide your
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