Page 2090 - Week 06 - Wednesday, 5 June 2019
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The solution is not one that can take one, two or three years; the solution will more likely take 10 or 20 years. It has taken 18 years to get to this point. Who knows; it might take 18 years to fix it. We need to make sure that the cost of land does not increase by 10 per cent, year on year, as it has done. If it keeps increasing by 10 per cent year on year, by the time these kids in the gallery are ready to buy a block of land, it will be $1.5 million dollars. It will cost $1.5 million dollars to buy a 400 square metre block of land in Gungahlin.
That is the trajectory that this Chief Minister has established. He is deliberately pricing out of the market the next generation of Canberrans. I want Canberrans who grew up in this city, who love this city, to be able to afford to live in this place. But it seems Andrew Barr and the Labor Party have a totally different vision for this city. They are consciously pricing people out of the market. They are deliberately moving people over the border into New South Wales, because they are not his sort of people.
We need to get these policy settings right. We owe it to the 27,000 people in Canberra living below the poverty line; we owe it to the working poor in Canberra; we owe it to the families that are doing it tough; we owe it to the retirees, to the pensioners; we owe it to everyone to get this right. But most of all, we owe it to the next generation of Canberrans. The last thing we should do is price our kids out of this city. That is exactly what is happening under ACT Labor.
MR BARR (Kurrajong—Chief Minister, Treasurer, Minister for Social Inclusion and Equality, Minister for Tourism and Special Events and Minister for Trade, Industry and Investment) (10.54): I move:
Omit all text after “notes”, substitute:
“(a) that, according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, the ACT’s tax per capita is in line with the national average and significantly lower than New South Wales and Victoria;
(b) so far, the ACT Government:
(i) has fully phased out insurance duty;
(ii) has removed stamp duty for around 70 percent of commercial transactions;
(iii) has raised the payroll tax threshold so that about 90 percent of Canberra’s small and medium businesses do not have to pay it; and
(iv) is continuing to cut stamp duty rates for all residential property transactions each and every year; and
(c) from 1 July this year, the ACT Government is fully abolishing stamp duty for eligible first home buyers, making it easier for young people and those on low incomes to own their own home;
(2) further notes:
(a) the significant volatility in stamp duty revenue experienced in other Australian jurisdictions caused by the boom and bust cycle of the Australian property market;
(b) the ACT’s 20 year tax reform agenda is designed to create stability in the ACT Budget; and
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