Page 179 - Week 01 - Wednesday, 10 December 2008
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benefit from no stamp duty. And I believe that young people could be pushed into negative equity under the Labor land rent plan. We have seen reports in the Canberra Times that existing homeowners are under stress and credit is becoming more difficult to obtain.
In the new financial situation in which we find ourselves, how many banks are willing to lend on house-only mortgages? We still have not heard from the government as to where these lenders are who are going to lend under their land rent scheme. All through this year we have seen the Stanhope-Gallagher government grab headlines instead of supply solutions.
Two main hurdles facing first homebuyers are the supply of land in the ACT and the substantial upfront impost insisted upon by this government. I have heard Mr Stanhope claim that not taxing a first homebuyer is unfair. This statement defies logic and beggars belief. How fair is it to tax first homebuyers by $10,000 or $15,000 for the privilege of buying a home? How fair is it to lead our most vulnerable homeowners into a scheme that could cripple them economically? How fair is it to replace hopes and dreams to budget bottom lines?
It is time this Assembly looked at the real solutions to problems that are staring us in the face, to dispense with weasel words and to stop playing games with people’s lives. This stamp duty, removed by many more progressive jurisdictions throughout the country, is what is unfair in the system; that is what must be changed. That is why I commend the bill to the house.
Debate (on motion by Ms Gallagher) adjourned to the next sitting.
Universal Declaration of Human Rights
MS BRESNAN (Brindabella) (11.44) I move:
That this Assembly:
(1) notes:
(a) that 10 December 2008 is the sixtieth anniversary of the adoption by the United Nations General Assembly of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights; and
(b) that 9 December 2008 is the sixtieth anniversary of the adoption of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide;
(2) pays tribute to those Australians who played leading roles in the development and adoption of these important instruments of international law and who, since then, have contributed to their implementation;
(3) recalls that the adoption of the Declaration and the Convention was a response to the suffering of those who had experienced human rights violations, especially the barbarous acts perpetrated during World War II;
(4) recognises, with regret and disappointment, that in the intervening sixty years violations of human rights including acts of genocide have continued to occur around the world;
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