Page 1189 - Week 04 - Tuesday, 24 March 2009
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inflationary and wrong, but at the same time he does not believe that in a short-term way handing over cash to first home buyers is inflationary—presumably he does not, because he will be supporting this bill. I understand he will be supporting this bill, as he should. But he should also explain the contradiction in his position. Apparently, if it is a tax cut proposed by the Liberal Party, it is inflationary. If it is a cash handout proposed by the Rudd Labor government, it is not inflationary—despite the fact, of course, that it is handed out over a short period of time, for a limited period, which inevitably will have some effects on people’s decision as to when to enter the market and will potentially see a flood of first home buyers trying to get into the market.
That, of course, brings us back to the land rent scheme. If the land rent scheme—and we still have not heard yet from the Chief Minister who this lender is—is not going to go ahead, if there is not going to be a chance of getting finance, these people are running out of time to access the federal money for first home buyers. We are now coming towards the end of March. That is not a very long period for people to make a decision before the end of June to look for a house and land package, or whatever decision they make as a family, if the land rent scheme does not work. It is therefore incumbent upon the government to be clear on where things are at. I have written to the Chief Minister, I think on a couple of occasions, and asked for an indication of where things are at and I have had no reply that I am aware of—certainly nothing that enlightens me as to where this lender is in relation to the land rent scheme.
I go back to the broader issue. The government has focused on things such as land rent and OwnPlace at the expense of getting the basics right, at the expense of looking at the planning system and at how we can fix it, at the expense of tax reform, particularly for first home buyers, and at the expense of doing something genuine about responding to the land shortages that we have seen in the past few years.
We see the next front for development, the Molonglo valley. We hear of delays. We have not heard much said about it by the planning minister, or by the Chief Minister indeed, over the past few months. So we can only assume from that that, even if we do get some whiz-bang announcements, we should take them with a grain of salt, because word in the industry is that that is being delayed, and of course that would be disappointing. We do want to see a northern and a southern front for new development, for greenfields development, and there has been a long delay in that coming on line. So it is important that we see that balance in land release coming.
In conclusion, we support the bill. We do think there are severe contradictions in the government’s position and we do think that their record on housing affordability has been one of their great failings. One of their most significant failings has been the extra impost and the burden that they have placed on first home buyers through their policies, through taxation, through planning, through land release. All of these things have contributed to young Canberrans struggling to buy a home. We see some of the false hope that has been offered in a number of schemes that have not been working. But we will be supporting the bill as we support the intention behind it.
MS HUNTER (Ginninderra—Parliamentary Convenor, ACT Greens) (12.17): The Greens have no objection to supporting the facilitation of commonwealth funds to the residents of the ACT under the first home owner grant boost scheme. This is an
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