Page 2496 - Week 06 - Thursday, 23 June 2011
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We have to remember why housing affordability is such an issue in the ACT. What can we look for in terms of relief? Housing affordability is an issue in the ACT because of two factors: the cost of land and the cost of developing that land. That is not me saying that; it is the urban design institute of Australia saying that. At the turn of the century, on their chart we were in the green zone—very affordable. At the end of the first decade of the new century, we were in the red zone—unaffordable. The UDI made it quite clear that there were two reasons for this. The first was the cost of land and they said the government controls the land. The second was the cost of development and the government controls the cost and the process of development.
The minister responsible for most of that debacle has just been put back in charge of planning. How one can have any confidence there is beyond me. So what we set up instead is a system whereby you can get a remission. The whole purpose of this process, we were told, was to put certainty back into planning so that if you came to a block, you knew the rules and you would get certainty because you could just look at what the law said.
The problem is, of course, that you will not get certainty out of this and you certainly will not get certainty out of the amendments that the Greens have put forward, because what you have is a system where everything changes. The objective, we were told, of the reforms was to give certainty. But this does not give certainty because you can seek remissions, you can seek not to pay the tax depending on the type of development you are putting in and how hard you argue with the government. Where there is a choice in these things, certainty disappears and what replaces certainty is the potential for corruption. (Second speaking period taken.) And that is a great concern. If you want certainty then you have to apply the rule. If you are not seeking certainty you will apply the law that Meredith Hunter and Katy Gallagher have cobbled together.
It is an incredibly poor process that the outcome of two years of work—and I respect those who have contributed to the work; we all have different views about where we should be on a change of use charge and what we should be doing—at the end of two years, is a greater tax grab by the government. Have no mistake; it is a tax. It is considered under taxation legislation; it is considered a tax by the government. It is a tax.
What you end up with is an enormous new tax and the potential for people within 50 metres of each other doing a development to pay incredibly different rates of tax. If you go to the logical conclusion, if you have the ability to argue with the government, or if you have influence inside the government or over the government, that simply leads to corruption.
If you want certainty then you need to make the rules clear. These amendments do not make the rules clear. The act, as written, is not clear. As I pointed out in the initial stages, just that one clause that I read out makes no sense. The minister had a good laugh and called it operator error. The Chief Minister said, “I can explain that,” and she read the explanatory memorandum. She could not explain it at all. It remains unexplained to this day.
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