Page 1554 - Week 05 - Wednesday, 7 May 2008
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Since the mid 1990s, the median house price in Australia has risen by 180 per cent, compared with an increase of a little over 30 per cent in the CPI. This real increase in house prices can be seen in the orange line in Chart 1. You can see that the rise in house prices has been much faster than that in construction costs, so the implication is that most of the increase in house prices has been due to increases in the price of land.
I will say that again:
… the implication is that most of the increase in house prices has been due to increases in the price of land.
Who controls land in the ACT? The Chief Minister does. Who controls the land release program in the ACT? The Chief Minister does. So who, by implication, is most responsible for the housing affordability crisis that we now have in the ACT? The Chief Minister is. At the same time there is a bonus: not only do we sell you the most expensive land, the land that has contributed to these massive increases, we then tax you on it. We charge you for owning your first home. We call it stamp duty. I notice in the budget papers it is called conveyancing. We do not want to have a duty or a tax highlighted; it is just conveyancing. It is a benign word, really.
The bottom line is that it is the Chief Minister, through his land program and through the planning processes that were in place until Mr Corbell was unceremoniously ditched for standing up to his leader, who has caused this problem. This is a problem of your government’s making. Indeed, it is a problem that could more easily be solved than anywhere else in this country because we do control land here in the ACT. Land reserves are owned by the government. They are held by the government outright, and that is the problem.
There you have it. The reason for the increase in house prices and, therefore, the decrease in housing affordability is quite clear. The Deputy Governor of the Reserve Bank of Australia went on to say:
We are therefore left with the conclusion that the decline in measures of housing affordability since the mid 1990s is almost entirely due to the rise in house prices relative to incomes.
We can well and truly lay at the feet of Jon Stanhope the problem that we have today. His poor budgeting, lack of a budget strategy and lack of attention to the issues that real Canberrans live with and deal with every day while he deals with the things that he is interested in are the cause of the problem that we have today and the reason for the motion we are debating today.
Mr Stanhope attacked the Leader of the Opposition. He said, “All your rich mates have got their half million dollars.” During the week he put the ludicrous proposition of first home buyers turning out with half a million dollars in cash that they have been salting away under their beds—the implication being, of course, that if you have money you have got it by some corrupt means.
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