Page 2487 - Week 07 - Wednesday, 1 August 2018
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Property investors who want to rent their property at affordable rent rates are doing a really good thing. In fact, if you have a rental property that you want to rent to somebody at an affordable rate you can do it yourself or you can give it to a community housing provider, as we have heard already. But should government be subsidising wealthy investors who choose to do that? Is that the best use of government money? Would this see a transfer of stock into community and affordable housing? How would this impact current tenants? I am not convinced.
Given the constraints the government must work with there are lots of other things we could do to respond to the inequities of the housing market rather than give a tax break to wealthy property investors. I am voting for Ms Berry’s amendment because it calls on the government to consider actions to address housing affordability. I guess they should consider a tax cut for the charitable actions of a property investor. Much as federal Labor has had the courage to stand up to millionaire property sharks on negative gearing and capital gains changes, I hope that ACT Labor members of the government consider the views of millionaire investors and correctly prioritise working and middle-class people above them.
It is interesting that the motion highlights the tax minimisation strategies a property investor could take advantage of if they participated in such a program. In fact, the ACT Greens seem to now be supporting an increase to the capital gains discount, a policy I am fairly certain they have promised to abolish federally. If you ask me, there are better, more targeted things we should spend the money on, and I will be making that clear to my colleagues in the future.
I thank Ms Berry for her amendment to this motion. I think it goes a long way to helping address housing affordability in the ACT.
MR PARTON (Brindabella) (10.58): I was both overjoyed and bitterly disappointed that Ms Le Couteur brought this motion to the chamber: overjoyed because it seemed like such a great idea because if this were implemented it would have a positive impact for some individuals and families in what is the toughest city to rent in Australia; and bitterly disappointed because my office had been working feverishly to bring a motion to this chamber that was pretty much exactly the same.
Ms Le Couteur and I were sitting in the planning committee last week. We were about to get into secret committee business and Ms Le Couteur leaned over to me and said, “Hey, I’ve got a rental affordability motion that I’d like you to have a look at to see if it might get your support.” We agreed to meet after the committee. I said to Ms Le Couteur, “I fear it could be exactly the same as ours,” and I was correct. When we initially discussed it up on the top floor I went down to my office and retrieved our draft motion which we had initially been planning to get up this week. We compared notes and for a moment—just for a moment—there was a discussion about the prospect of a co-sponsored motion. Who suggested that? It was Ms Le Couteur.
I rejected that option simply because it was clear the Greens had been working on this motion for a little longer than we had; not much longer, but a little longer. They had done some crude modelling, more than we had. It must be said that we genuinely
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