Page 3898 - Week 12 - Thursday, 29 October 2015
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We were told that we would see the phasing out of stamp duty and yet we had the contorted ballet of the Chief Minister in estimates this year. In about three hours he had three different positions on whether or not stamp duty was going: “Stamp duty is going”; “Stamp duty is going but I can’t tell you when it’s going”; and “Stamp duty probably should go, but if stamp duty doesn’t go then we will have the lowest rate of stamp duty application in the country.” So which is it?
We have seen rates go up on average something like 45 per cent. In some areas they have gone up 60 per cent. We have seen enormous hikes in commercial rates. Mr Barr says, “You can’t tax land; it can’t move.” But the tenants can move, and the tenants go across the border to Queanbeyan.
I have got one example of a modestly sized unit in Fyshwick where the rates have gone up 48 per cent. The government’s expectation is that those businesses will just pay that. Then there is the extraordinary example of the Manuka newsagency where rates went from basically $70,000 to $100,000 in the space of a year. Is that fair, M Rattenbury? Do you really believe that that is fair and equitable and explainable for any one? The answer is, no, it is not. This use of the word “progressive” is just a cover for higher taxation.
Now we hear from the Chief Minister and Treasurer that of course the increases will be moderated over the coming years. That may have something to do with the fact that, as the Leader of the Opposition pointed out earlier today, next year is an election year. The Chief Minister and Treasurer predicted that rate increases would suddenly slow. That was just to allay people’s fears. “There’s nothing wrong here. Look somewhere else so you will not see it.”
But have no doubt: to achieve what the Treasurer and Chief Minister, the Labor Party and the Greens want to achieve, rates must triple. The simple maths is, if you take the taxes that they propose to get rid of and distribute them into rates, rates must triple—and according to the Quinlan review it is about 11 years.
We can already see that we are well and truly on our way to that tripling. You only need to look at some of the areas like Yarralumla, Campbell, Red Hill and Aranda, where rates are up at least 62 per cent. In Red Hill the average rates are up 64 per cent. In Aranda they are up 62 per cent. On average, rates are up 42 per cent across the city over the four years of this reform, and we are to believe that that is a good thing.
There was a carrot offered, but the carrot has now proved to be just a mirage, because they are not getting rid of conveyancing. There was an article recently in the Canberra Times, as a sop, that simply said that what we are seeing more and more is that the tax reform is just a cover for tax increases. Indeed I quote from Mikayla Novak in the Canberra Times on 27 July this year:
Budget papers show the government is banking on revenue from general rates and land tax in the order of $670 million in 2018-19, more than double the level of revenue raised from those imposts in 2011-12.
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