Page 4397 - Week 12 - Thursday, 24 October 2019
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point where many investors are leaving the market because they are not making any money out of it.
The Better Renting site reposted a comment of mine along those lines recently, but they did not attribute it to me; they just said that some evil conservative guy said that investors are not making money out of their rental properties in Canberra. That was a silly thing to say. The reality of the market is that if people are not making money out of their rental investments, they are not going to continue with them. This is about the market providing accommodation for people.
Additionally, the changes to rental tenancy law have become the final straw for quite a number of landlords, who have chosen to sell their properties and reinvest in something in another jurisdiction.
Mr Barr: Then someone buys that house.
MR PARTON: Most of those former rental properties, as Mr Barr points out, are being purchased by owner-occupiers, according to my people in real estate. That is fine, but it further diminishes the rental market. Those opposite, including Mr Rattenbury, can continue to ignore this reality, but the reality is that our private rental market is at a tipping point, and the biggest losers out of this mess are those at the lower end of that market who cannot afford—who cannot afford, I would say to Mr Barr—to purchase these homes that are coming onto the market. They cannot afford to. All they are looking for is a rental property, and they are being squeezed out of it. This places even more pressure on the housing providers and the housing models that are spoken of in this motion.
Exactly a year ago, I introduced a measure, albeit a small one, to the Assembly to encourage private property owners to lease their properties through a community housing provider. We got there eventually, some months later. The Canberra Liberals will not just pay lip-service to community housing; we will actively support the sector to do what they do best: provide low cost housing to those at the edge of the market.
I seek leave to move my two amendments together.
Leave granted.
MR PARTON: I move:
(1) Insert new paragraph (2)(f):
“(f) that this Assembly agreed, in a motion on 18 September, to the extension of the pilot land tax concessions program for property owners who make properties available at less than 75 percent of the current market rate;”.
(2) After paragraph (3)(a), insert:
“(b) give certainty to the community housing sector by removing the expiration of the land tax exemption for land provided for affordable community housing as soon as it is practically possible and clearly signalling this to the sector;”.
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