Page 2461 - Week 06 - Thursday, 23 June 2011
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go up from 1 July what we will see is a rush to get it in before they have to pay more tax.
If we are going to make these radical changes and these significant changes, we actually need some time to bed it down and examine how it is impacting on the market. And there is no way we will be able to do that in just a year or so, because we have already seen a bringing forward of a lot of development to beat these changes. We have already seen the bringing forward of development to beat the uncertainty that was coming as a result of these changes. We saw that over the last year or so. What the government would like to do now is create that on a rolling basis. On a rolling basis we will see the sudden rush to beat the tax rise. Why not provide some certainty and for a period of time, for a period of five years, set it?
The fact that we need such significant remissions, I think, goes to the heart of just how wrong the government has got it on these schedules. The schedules are clearly far too high. If they were not, we would be seeing, under “rectification”, these kinds of amounts paid out. There is no other way to read “rectification”.
We are told by the Chief Minister that rectification would bring us in line with the tables, and in fact the principle we are working on is that the tables are market reflection, as is rectification. All it is is that we are just stating up front what it is going to be in the codified schedules. If that is the case, then we would already be seeing $50,000 per unit paid out under rectification. We are not, because that is not what the rectification process has brought.
So it shows that at the heart of this tax increase is not a reflection of market values. It is just a desire to levy much more tax. In fact, in response to that, we have got the government offering large remissions. Their offering of large remissions is an admission that they have got it wrong. If you have to knock off 75 per cent of a tax to make it work, then perhaps the tax is far too high in the first place. And I think that is what we are faced with here. We are not seeing these kinds of numbers, we are not seeing the $50,000 per unit in Braddon being delivered at the moment under rectification. We have seen no evidence of that. And if we are not seeing them now under rectification, then the schedules are too high.
So the government is saying, “We will remit, but only for a little while and then we will step it up.” Our amendment says, “Okay, if you are going to go ahead with this, keep it at a reasonable level for a few years so that we do not have this massive hit on affordability, so that we do not have this massive hit on affordability that this government would like to impose and so that we can monitor how it is actually affecting the market.” And we need this. My amendment would provide that kind of certainty. It would seek to take a bad piece of legislation and improve it.
In relation to the other aspect of the amendment, this is around off-site works, it is reasonable that, where off-site works are required, that is taken into account in determining how much tax is to be paid. There will often be a significant community benefit where off-site works are undertaken. Developers will often be best placed to deliver these off-site works on behalf of the government, and it is therefore reasonable that we ensure that that is reflected. Otherwise, we will have more and more of this
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