Page 937 - Week 03 - Wednesday, 25 February 2009
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These are middle-income earners who have saved hard for a deposit, who feel they do not want to burden themselves with the high mortgage needed to have a house and land package, and the government says to them, “Well, we’ll give you this scheme which no-one will lend under, but we’ll charge you $5,000 for the privilege of renting land from us.” I think that is an outrageous proposition, and it is one of the less commented upon aspects of this scheme.
This government will charge you tax to rent. It will charge you stamp duty to rent a block of land. That is $5,000 out of the deposit. That is $5,000 more that is put on a mortgage for families, if they are able to get finance under this scheme. It is an outrageous imposition on young families. It is not offering them a genuine solution to their problems; it is burdening them with further levels of taxation.
We have seen the public comments that have been made by Jon Stanhope in relation to liability. He says that no-one is out of pocket. Well, they are out of pocket. They have spent legal fees. It is absolutely reasonable to expect to engage a lawyer if you are exchanging contracts. We would expect that in a transaction like this. That is the ordinary way of doing things. Jon Stanhope says, “Well, if they don’t find finance, it’s not our problem. If they’re out of pocket as a result of legal fees or anything else, that’s not our problem. They went into it with their eyes wide open.”
That is where we get to the crux of this issue, Mr Speaker—that is, they were led astray by this government. The lady quoted in the Canberra Times on Saturday summed it up—you do not expect to be led astray by the government. When the government puts on a scheme, you expect that it will work. You expect that it will have some backing.
When people read the newspaper reports and the press releases, they were led to believe and given the impression that there would be financiers. To date, there are not. Now we are told about an anonymous financier who “may” support the scheme. Eight months later we are told about an anonymous financier who may support the scheme. We were told about financiers who supported the scheme in principle many, many months ago, and they have not yet eventuated.
Moving to the second part of the motion, Mr Speaker, we call on the government—this is very important—to reveal to the Assembly who the lender is that has provided in-principle support. Mr Stanhope wanted the names of people who have come to the opposition. Well, what about the lender? Explain to the Assembly and the broader community why those participating in a rental scheme are required to pay stamp duty. That is not clear, and we look forward to the answer to that. The government should provide those contracted to the scheme but who have been unable to secure finance the capacity to opt out of the program and explore reasonable reimbursement expenses for those who choose to opt out of the program as a result of a lack of finance.
These are reasonable requests that will put at ease the minds of those individuals affected. We believe they have been led into a flawed scheme. Financiers have been slow to come on board, and we still do not see these people getting finance apart from the one example that has been given to us in the Assembly, and we do not know the
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