Page 3247 - Week 09 - Tuesday, 19 August 2008
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As I said earlier, our plan has carefully considered supply and demand and identified the levers that the government might be able to manipulate to bring about sustainable, long-term change influencing affordability. That is unlike those opposite, who have a plan to make housing more affordable—a plan which, incidentally, will simply increase the price of houses.
The Liberals’ housing affordability plan is reduced to a single option or position, to remove stamp duty for first homebuyers who buy a home under $500,000. Here we have it. We are eight weeks out from an election and a significant position is put today in a matter of public importance on affordable housing. The Liberal leader’s response in this debate today was to reiterate that their policy on housing affordability is centred on a single initiative—that they will reduce or remove stamp duty for first homebuyers who buy a home under $500,000.
What has all the analysis said, even analysis by objective experts—even, most particularly, by Westpac? Westpac has done detailed analysis of the implications of removing stamp duty in an untargeted way such as this—un-means tested. Un-targeted removal of stamp duty for first homebuyers with a house under $500,000, in the assessment of Westpac, will drive up the price of houses by at least two per cent on a medium-priced house in the ACT. That will produce an increase in the overall price of those homes of $9,000.
Mr Gentleman: We’ll all be paying for it.
MR STANHOPE: Everybody will pay for it. If you remove stamp duty for first homebuyers—un-targeted, un-means tested—those that are in the first tranche do very well; they have the stamp duty holiday. The price of houses will rise immediately by $9,000, according to Westpac. That $9,000 increase in the price of houses is then passed on to everybody else seeking to buy their first home. And it just continues to spiral. They then get their stamp duty exemption; the price of houses goes up another two per cent. And on it goes.
It is a flawed policy; we know it is a flawed policy. It is populist; it is simplistic. It is the policy of a party that has done nothing but fight and brawl for the last four years and suddenly realises “Oops, there’s an election in a few months; we’d better develop a policy or two.” They have not bent their mind to it. They have come up with a single policy; we see the second aspect of the policy announced today. “We will have a stamp duty exemption for first homebuyers, un-means tested, un-targeted, up to $500,000. We’ll do nothing but push up the price of houses.”
Their second policy pronouncement was delivered today: they will abolish the land rent scheme. They do not believe that people under $50,000 who cannot find the wherewithal to provide a house and land package should be denied the option of buying a house. It is a classic Marie Antoinette: “We don’t think you deserve your own house. Let them rent.” It comes out of Mr Seselja’s mouth today: “Look, we don’t think this option should be open to those that can’t afford a house and land package. We think they should simply rent.”
Mrs Burke: It’s flawed, your policy.
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