Page 1552 - Week 05 - Wednesday, 7 May 2008
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Of course, the government has ensured that affordable house and land packages are available by mandating that 15 per cent of all new house and land packages are priced between $200,000 and $300,000. The Liberal Party’s policy is to target people who can afford a half million dollar house. That is the Liberal Party’s response to housing affordability—let us identify the people who can pay half a million dollars for a house and let us actually give them a stamp duty holiday. If you can afford to buy a half million dollar house and therefore service a loan of $450,000, that means you have an income of around $160,000 a year. The banks will not lend to you otherwise. These are the people the Liberal Party is supporting through its policy. Those are the numbers. In order to buy the $500,000 house that the Liberal Party’s policy is aimed at, you would have to have an income that has the capacity to service a loan of $450,000.
Mr Gentleman: That is more than we can get in here!
MR STANHOPE: That is right, and that is a good point that Mr Gentleman makes. Not even a non-executive member of this place could afford to buy a $500,000 house. They would not actually be eligible and would not fit at the top level of the Liberal Party’s scheme. The Liberal Party’s one policy proposal is to provide the greatest benefits to those households in the ACT earning more than $160,000 a year and who can afford to purchase a half million dollar house. There you have it in its stark reality. The Liberal Party’s one and only policy initiative provides its most significant benefit under its housing affordability scheme to households in the ACT with incomes above $160,000.
The Leader of the Opposition is crying crocodile tears about caring for those in housing stress. People who earn $160,000 a year are not in housing stress, let me tell you that. This is the Liberal Party’s policy—you get the greatest benefit under this scheme if you earn over $160,000 through your household. What an amazing policy. Dealing with housing stress and housing affordability, the Liberal Party’s policy provides that if you have an income of over $160,000 then you can maximise your return on the Liberal Party’s stamp duty first home buyer’s rebate. What a nonsense.
Of course, the injustice of Mr Seselja’s policy is compounded. Rich people even further cashed up with an unwarranted handout from the Canberra Liberals will be bidding up house prices and making it even harder for those on moderate or modest incomes to purchase their first homes. That is what you do. You actually give all this money to people earning more than $160,000. They are cashed up and the price goes up. The double injustice and the double whammy is that you are targeting rich people pretending that they are in housing stress, and the people in genuine housing stress suffer the double injustice of having the price of houses that they had hoped to be able to purchase pushed up.
At the budget breakfast this morning Mr Seselja did not refute that his policy would raise prices. Instead, he suggested that it did not matter because you can increase land release to bring prices back down again. Here he is saying this morning on the public record that it does not matter if the prices go up because you just release more land. That is the Liberal Party’s response to this particular issue. It is amazing that the
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