Page 2484 - Week 06 - Thursday, 23 June 2011
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The idea that people buying in Canberra are not going to pay more if you put this tax on is absurd. It is a lie. It is untrue. It is completely indefensible. The idea that you can put a $50,000 tax on a unit and it is not going to affect the price is ridiculous. It does not stand up to scrutiny. If that were true, governments all over the place would not be cutting stamp duty; they would be doubling it and tripling it. They would be putting $50,000, $100,000 and $200,000 taxes on top because it does not matter. Of course it matters. This government, this Chief Minister and the Greens have decided they want people to pay more.
They want people to pay more from July 1, again from July 1 the next year, and July 1 the year after until they are paying $50,000 just in change of use tax over and above their stamp duty, over and above all of their other costs, just for that privilege of buying a home here in Canberra. That is what you cannot defend and you have not ever bothered to defend, because it is indefensible. That is why you never address it. You pretend it does not exist—that there are no class implications.
What does it say about the process of getting here that we have had a couple of years of work for a 29 page piece of legislation and then at the last minute we add another 16 pages, another 50 per cent to that bill? What does it say about the quality of that legislation? What does it say about how well this has been thought through—this significant change that has significant implications for a massive sector of our economy and for large numbers of families in the ACT?
What does it say that this was done at the last minute? If it was such a good piece of legislation that was introduced, what does it say about it that, after a couple of years of work, we have got to add another 16 pages to the 29 pages that were presented to the Assembly?
Ms Gallagher: It is all about size, isn’t it, Zed?
MR SESELJA: Well, what does it say when you are changing it by more than half again, more than half again? More than half again is being added.
It says that you are getting it wrong. As I said in my reply at the in-principle stage, this is a bad piece of legislation. It is a bad process that has led to a bad law which will lead to bad outcomes. It is going to lead to the dodgy deals. We have seen the dodgy deals already. The dodgy deals are already there, not least of which is the finalisation of this legislation. But what Ms Gallagher is using for her latest rationale tonight, of course, is that effectively this government was breaking the law for many years.
She is saying that they were breaking the law. We can only assume from that, that she is alleging there was some form of corruption somewhere by someone in government, along with the Australian Valuation Office, along with property developers, to rip the taxpayer off. That is the conclusion that we draw from Katy Gallagher’s comments.
She is saying that her government has been robbing people blind. That is the only conclusion you can draw from what she just said in her speech. So who is it? There
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