Page 3383 - Week 08 - Thursday, 23 August 2012
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MR SPEAKER: Mr Seselja has a supplementary.
MR SESELJA: Minister, do you still hold the view that the family home is a tax haven and that this is a problem for our community?
MR BARR: I support fair and progressive taxation. I support a tax system that ensures that market distortions are reduced as much as possible and that deadweight loss is removed from our taxation system and returned to the territory economy. I will continue—
Mr Hanson: A point of order.
MR SPEAKER: Mr Barr, one moment, thank you. Stop the clock, thank you.
Mr Hanson: The question that Mr Seselja asked was very specific. It was whether Mr Barr stands by his comments that the family home is a tax haven, and I would ask him to answer that question and be relevant to the question.
MR SPEAKER: Mr Barr.
MR BARR: Mr Speaker, I think the Leader of the Opposition may be referring to an observation I made in my inaugural speech that the value of the family home, and its inflated value, reflects its tax-free status. That was the comment I made in my inaugural speech, and if you want to look at some of the root causes for affordability, for why housing has become unaffordable for many Australians, it certainly relates to the taxation treatment of—
Mr Smyth: No, it relates to your land supply—
MR SPEAKER: Mr Smyth!
MR BARR: If only it were that easy, Mr Smyth. But the value of a home—and this is the point I was making in my inaugural speech—is of course a reflection of the fact that under Australian taxation law, over a period of time, it has not attracted any tax relative to other investments. It is no surprise then that house prices have become inflated in this country.
Pace Farm—battery hens
MS LE COUTEUR: My question is to the Minister for Economic Development and relates to a deal recently done with Pace Farm to stop battery cage egg production at Parkwood. The minister’s media release on 4 July said that Parkwood will convert to barn egg production and the government will purchase land from it for $7.5 million. The media release further says the government will rezone the land to industrial use and sell it for approximately $30 million. Can you advise the Assembly on the progress of this agreement? What is the deadline for conversion away from cage eggs and what will be the expected capacity of hens in the facility?
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