Page 3689 - Week 10 - Wednesday, 13 September 2017
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Rates are not the only issue, of course, for affordable housing in Canberra, and I am not trying to suggest for one minute that they are, but we need to make sure that they are equitable and that they do not inadvertently add to housing insecurity in Canberra.
A critical part of making this work for all vulnerable people is making sure that the concessions and deferments available capture everybody who needs support in a fair way. The rates system has a number of concessions and deferments that support in excess of 18,000 people, including pensioners and people suffering from financial hardship. Most of these people come under the pensioners rebate scheme.
There are also some very generous rates deferment schemes available. However, they have very narrow eligibility criteria. For example, one deferment scheme is only available for those older people who live in the top 20 per cent of the most valuable blocks, not people in average blocks. I asked a question on notice about this, and only two people have accessed this.
My understanding is that this was intended to help older people who did not qualify for the standard pensioner deferment and who had lived for many years in a suburb which has suddenly become expensive. As a result their rates have gone up much faster than for people in other suburbs but their superannuation income has not. This probably made sense a few years ago, but as taxation reform continues rates are going to be an increasing proportion of income across Canberra. I have had letters about this from people in Tuggeranong and Belconnen, who do not live on expensive blocks.
Should the threshold now be lowered to the top 30 per cent per cent or should it be available, possibly with some changes, to any of the older people who earn less than $50,000 per year? This is the sort of thing we need to look at in terms of how we design our rates system to be equitable and supporting everybody.
I will briefly address the issue of units because that is touched on in both Mr Coe’s motion and the amendment. The Greens have supported changing the way rates are calculated on units because the previous system meant that unit owners were not paying a fair amount compared to house owners. The old system meant that if a block of land was developed from a house into units, the land value based component of the rates would fall. That is because each unit was charged as a separate, small piece of land and, of course, each of those sat at the lowest—almost certainly the lowest—marginal rate. Now, the block of land will pay the same land value based part of the rates regardless of whether it is a house block or a block of units. Of course, for a block of units, the rate is divided up between the different units, so each unit owner will still usually pay much less than a typical house owner.
However, we have been hearing concerns from the community that the jump is causing problems for some people. Some of these people are on fixed incomes and others are first homebuyers. This emphasises what I have been saying about needing to constantly check the equity impacts of tax reform. Regardless of where we live, we all use government services and we need to contribute fairly to government revenue.
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