Page 1433 - Week 05 - Tuesday, 6 May 2008
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .
MR STANHOPE: No, no. You need to understand what this policy is that the Liberal Party is hanging its hat on.
Mr Seselja interjecting—
MR STANHOPE: It does not matter about your circumstance. It does not matter if you are in that bottom quintile that is having trouble accessing housing at all, affordable housing—
Mr Seselja interjecting—
MR SPEAKER: Chief Minister, come back to the subject matter of the question. It was not about the Liberal Party policy.
MR STANHOPE: It was about stamp duty. I am explaining. It was about the Liberal Party’s recently announced stamp duty policy. I am explaining why we are not engaging or we are not endorsing and we have no intention of actually following the stamp duty policy of the Liberal Party. That was the question. The Liberal Party’s stamp duty policy is to provide for an exemption from stamp duty for everybody. No matter what your circumstance, no matter what your level of income, no matter your capacity to pay, you will receive a complete or total exemption from stamp duty. That is the policy.
The reason we will not endorse it, the reason I will not endorse it today, in response to the Leader of the Opposition, is that we do not believe that a demand side response that is un-means-tested will have any effect on or implications for affordability.
Opposition members interjecting—
MR STANHOPE: In fact, it will, perversely, make it harder for lower income earners to enter the housing market. It will drive demand. It encourages those that are wealthy, it encourages those that have absolutely no issue about entering the housing market, to ratchet up—
Opposition members interjecting—
MR STANHOPE: So the Liberal Party policy is that, if you are in that category of people that can afford to buy a house for half a million dollars with absolutely no pressure—of course you can afford to do it—you go to the Liberal Party and they will say, “Look, no matter the fact that you can go out and pay cash.” This is a policy, for instance, that will allow somebody that can pay half a million dollars in cash for a house to be granted by the government a $20,000 discount. So you can walk up to your real estate agent and say: “Oh, look, I want to buy this house here. Here’s half a million dollars in notes. Well, actually, I won’t buy that half a million dollar house; I’ll actually go and get my $20,000 discount, so I can then buy a house worth $520,000.”
Opposition members interjecting—
MR SPEAKER: Order!
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .