Page 2845 - Week 07 - Thursday, 7 June 2012
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A genuine average family could easily be looking at a much larger figure. Just factoring in car parking and utilities taxes—glaring omissions from this statement—easily puts that number over $12,000 a year, or $1,000 a month.
If we took a family with three kids, one in childcare and one in a non-government school, the cost of living climbs drastically. That is not an unreasonable scenario. Around half of all families in the ACT send a child to a non-government school, yet this government supports those families with the lowest funding for those children in the entire country. If the same family were to send their child to a non-government school in New South Wales they could receive around $1,000 per child more support than they do here in the ACT.
If we take our more average “average” family, using only 25 weeks of childcare and paying for car parking and one modest non-government school, our calculations put the true cost of living figure at $24,700, just to cover the costs.
And Katy Gallagher says, “Turn off the Foxtel.” It is a disgraceful comment to make and one I will not let the people of Canberra forget as they struggle with the cost of living pressures placed upon them by this government.
Having established the massive increases in cost of living, I want to turn to the other aspects of the so-called “reform” that is in this budget.
The Treasurer has made much of the fact that the government will reduce and eventually abolish stamp duty as a tax and replace it with general rates. As we know, stamp duty, especially stamp duty on first homes, has been a tax set at such a high level that it is a significant barrier for entry into the housing market. As we also know, ACT Labor never tells the whole story or reveals the whole truth.
Our approach was to decrease the burden for first homebuyers, and that is a philosophy we still embrace. First homebuyers are the ones who need the most assistance and the ones that will create the basis for the next generation of growth in the ACT. Making it more affordable to get into a home means people who grew up here are more likely to stay and to settle here, and those who have come here to work are more likely to adopt our city as their new home.
The process outlined by this budget only helps some first homebuyers. Mr Barr said in his speech on Tuesday, and repeatedly since, that the first homebuyers concession scheme will cease unless they buy a new home in a greenfields site or a “substantially renovated” home or empty block. Quite what “substantially renovated” means is not clearly spelled out, but it is safe to assume that any substantially renovated home is very likely to be priced well beyond the capacity of a new homeowner to buy, and above the thresholds for the new scheme.
On preliminary study it appears that most first homebuyers will be worse off. We know from questions on notice that most first homebuyers prefer to buy a modest home in an established suburb, usually close to their own families and friends. In some years this has been 60 per cent and in others over 80 per cent. In every year, most first homebuyers buy existing homes.
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