Ms O’CONNOR (Hobart) – Mr President, I was thinking when the member for Murchison was speaking, and it was a great education, as always, on matters of the state’s finances, railing for genuine evidence‑based tax reform, how this would be music to the former Greens member for Lyons, Tim Morris’s ears.
Ms Forrest – He was on the tax panel.
Ms O’CONNOR – That is right, and so to was the then shadow treasurer Peter Gutwein. I cannot remember who was on it from government.
Ms Forrest – It was Mr Aird and then Lara Giddings, when she took over the Treasury.
Ms O’Connor – Yes. So, there was, at a point in time, partly pushed by Mr Morris, I would say, a sincere effort to have a look at the state’s taxation base and what kind of reform we might initiate as a state so it is much more sustainable.
I agree with the member for Murchison that we keep seeing this bill – this is déjà vu all over again for me. We keep seeing these extensions of concessions, and for first home buyers, obviously very important, but it is lazy tax policy. It is also lazy housing policy, because as a government if you are really serious about tackling the shortage of available affordable housing, first of all you get really serious about increasing your supply of social housing, like governments used to do not that long ago. Also, instead of putting a levy on short‑stay, you get some restraint in there so people are not putting their whole homes or investors putting whole homes onto the short-stay market.
One of the things that was incredibly striking during the Hobart campaign, because I had not walked so much in years, was the number of homes that had locked boxes and mailboxes full of stuff and it was pretty obvious that no one lived in that home. I went past apartment blocks that had the mailboxes all together in the foyer, locked box after locked box. It was clear again, many of those properties which could be providing a home for people were on the short-stay accommodation market.
We have had a government in here for the past 10 years that has let short-stay accommodation get absolutely out of control. It is worse in Hobart, per capita or per house, than it is in any other Australian capital city.
That is a failure to recognise a problem, a failure to regulate and, as always, a sop to the property class. If you want to get serious about helping people with the cost of living, you have a look at the ACT model for rent controls. In the ACT, if a landlord wants to jack up the rent, they need to be able to argue to the Residential Tenancy Commissioner that an increase of more than 10 per cent plus CPI is reasonable. It is not a perfect system, but it has created some restraint on rents.
Mr President, could I in advance apologise to you if I call you Mr Speaker, because it has been on the tip of my tongue a number of times.
There are many things the government could be doing to increase the availability of affordable housing and make it easier for Tasmanians to buy their own home. Of course, this is one measure, but there is reasonably clear evidence that stamp duty discounts are a boon for real estate agents.
I just had a look before when the member for McIntyre was on her feet, at house prices in Hobart. I put in a $600,000 maximum. If I was looking for a $600,000 maximum home in greater Hobart, there were two houses available and the rest of them were in the mid 600s. The web page was feeding me properties that were offers over or up to $650,000. I actually think we do have a problem with house prices in terms of what first home buyers are able to purchase, because in greater Hobart, there are two properties for under $600,000. That is it. As a mother of four young people, it is quite depressing.
Another recollection from door-knocking and it really struck me, it was the first time it had been so evident, the number of households where there was an older mum and dad at home and they had children there in their 20s. Why is that? It is because of a failure of public policy to invest in more social housing; control rents; control short stay.
In the other place, the Greens did not oppose this bill, just as we have not opposed it every time it lands on the table. We recognise it extends the 50 per cent stamp duty discount for first time buyers to 100 per cent. That is very generous – a point that was made by the member for McIntyre. It increases the maximum dutiable value for the exemption from $600,000 to $750,000. Again, if you are looking at the price range of $750,000 in Hobart, there is not a huge amount of choice there.
It applies a 50 per cent discount on stamp duty for downsizing seniors. I note this measure is in place for only one year, whereas the discount for first home buyers is in place for two years. This may have come up in the other place, but maybe the Leader of Government Business can explain to Council why the decision was made in one case to provide the discount – or actually a complete exemption from stamp duty at 100 per cent – to first home buyers for two years but the downsizing concession for seniors is only in place for one year. It extends that duty until 30 June 2025.
It extends the duration of existing land tax exemptions for new bills made available for long-term rentals until 2026 and short-term visitor accommodation converted to long-term rentals until 2026.
Again, ‘short termism’. The dates in here: 2025 and 2026. We will be back in here having this discussion again before too long, although I note that the minister has given themselves the capacity to extend the concession scheme via order, which is something that the Greens had suggested that they do.
The bill that we are debating now raises the land tax free threshold from $99,999 to $124,999 and it extends a payroll tax rebate for apprentices, trainees and youth employees until 2025.
One of the really frustrating truths for the Greens particularly is how we have an approach to one cohort of occasional taxpayers – big mining, big gambling, big fish farming, where we give away leases and rights and licences for close to nothing – and yet the everyday taxpayer dutifully pays their tax. If you are like me, I am quite happy to pay tax because we want people to have access to good services and all of that. However, if we got serious about even bringing Tasmania up to the national average, for example, on what we charge for mining royalties, which is well below the national average, we could raise $60 million a year just by bringing mining royalties to the national average.
If we restored casino tax rates to pre‑2022 levels, we could raise $8 million a year, but this being Tasmania, we know that is not going to happen.
We could put a proper royalty on salmon growers. We could put a 10 per cent royalty on salmon grown in Tasmanian waters, but, again, we give away salmon leases to international corporations for nearly nothing. In the process we exclude everyday Tasmanians from around those leases. We allow the fish poo and muck that comes out of inshore fish farms to pollute the beaches that are the common wealth of the Tasmanian people. At the very least, should we not be getting something back for this? At the moment, it is hard to argue that Tasmania gets anything significant because the industry is mechanising. Robots are taking the jobs of human beings. It is hard to argue that Tasmanians get anything significant as a result of having corporations like JBS and Cooke here in our inshore waters, exploiting them, polluting them for next to nothing at massive profit to them as corporations.
If we were serious about tax reform, we could put a 75 per cent charge on property speculators who make a massive windfall gain simply because a piece of land that they had was rezoned. They did not invest in it. They did not improve it. They did not create any jobs through it. It was rezoned so there is a massive windfall gain there for property developers. That does not pass the sniff test. There are many things that we could be doing as a state to improve our tax base, but we get populist, lazy approaches to tax over and over again.
I will talk about the presentation made by respected economist Saul Eslake that was referred to by the member for Murchison. I do not think it is available online, but if anyone wants a copy, I am happy to make a copy. It is very confronting reading and, as I understand it because I did speak to Mr Eslake last week once we received this, the information in this presentation is foundational to the work that Mr Eslake will do, requested by the Tasmanian government as a result of the agreement with the Jacqui Lambie Network MPs.
If you go to page 57, it is a terrifying set of graphs. We have net debt projected to be nudging $8 billion somewhere between $7 and 8 billion by 2027. We have total net financial liabilities somewhere close to $9 billion by 2027, and that includes unfunded superannuation and other employee liabilities, trade creditors, et cetera. We are also seeing in here, what I think is evidence of –
Ms Forrest – To be clear that is the whole state sector, including the GBEs.
Ms O’CONNOR – Yes, we also have in here what I think is evidence of a failure of public policy to invest in homes because our population growth which was – it had definitely picked up. Our population growth on page 5 of this presentation shows that from about early to mid-2018, suddenly people from the mainland stopped wanting to move here.
We had a sharp increase in population starting in 2012 and running through to 2018 and then it has been in decline. If you think about the one factor that might have contributed to people on the mainland making a decision not to move down here, it is housing; our housing crisis was receiving national attention.
We had Tasmanians leaving for the mainland because they had been priced out of their own paradise and we had people on the mainland having a look at how little housing there was down here and making a decision not to bring their skills, their family, their wealth and their potential to Tasmania. There is a challenge here on multiple levels and if we cannot get housing right, we will be held back as a state and –
Ms Forrest – We cannot attract workers.
Ms O’CONNOR – We cannot attract workers. For example, this might be something that the member for McIntyre is aware of. A couple of years ago on a visit to St Helens I was talking to some of the locals about the fact that medical professionals who were moving to St Helens were staying in caravans or some sort of temporary accommodation for a little while; they could not find a home and left. This is happening in rural and regional communities and in our major centres around the island. It is a failure of government to invest in building homes for people – a foundational responsibility of government.
We get this tinkering through stamp duty concessions without the substantive investment in housing for the people of Tasmania. Given what we know about the state’s finances, we have a government that is making a decision, a political decision, to commit to a blank cheque on a massive stadium at Macquarie Point when it knows it needs to invest in housing people. It absolutely has to because there is an economic impact, which we are seeing, when you do not do that. It is a political choice to house an AFL and AFLW team under a roofed stadium at Macquarie Point instead of providing homes for the people of Tasmania when we have two perfectly good stadiums.
York Park has just undergone an upgrade and more money is being spent on it. It is a beautiful stadium. It should be the home of the AFL and the AFLW. Bellerive would be great for away games and we could instead have a government that recognised investing in social infrastructure. Imagine if we spent a billion dollars building homes for people; if we had a government that recognised investing in social infrastructure is the best capital investment they could make.
We will not be opposing this bill. I know the member for McIntyre has prepared and circulated an amendment, but on reflection I am not sure I could support that amendment. Having had a look at property prices in Hobart, I absolutely agree with what Mr Valentine said in his valedictory yesterday – I am paraphrasing him badly – but how perverse it is that we celebrate increased house prices, because the only winners when that happens is the property class. I am sure most people in this room are in that class, but it is the young people who I worry about. There is some help here for young Tasmanians who are buying their own home, but of course they will have to have raised the deposit and have to have secure employment. There are still plenty of challenges there for young Tasmanians or any first home buyers who want to get into the property market, have some security and have a good life.
