Wednesday, 28 May 2025

State Taxation Acts Amendment Bill 2025

Second reading

Debate resumed on motion of Danny Pearson:

That this bill be now read a second time.

Ellen SANDELL (Melbourne) (16:45): I was not sure that we were going to get a guernsey on this one, but thank you to both sides for allowing me to make a contribution on behalf of the Greens on the State Taxation Acts Amendment Bill 2025. I am speaking on behalf of the Victorian Greens to make our contribution on this bill. This bill proposes a number of changes to a range of state taxation and levy acts. They are mostly quite modest changes in the scheme of things.

There are two parts in particular that the Greens are very supportive of, which I want to speak about first. The bill proposes to make some land tax and duties concessions for those experiencing family violence, which the Greens support, and to ensure that men – and yes, it is mostly men – have fewer financial tools to control, coerce and abuse their partners with and that women are not adversely impacted financially by leaving an abusive or violent relationship. Unfortunately, as I think we all know, almost 30 women this year have been killed by their intimate partners, a figure that is still completely and totally unacceptable, and this is despite us having a Royal Commission into Family Violence. Women are still being killed at an alarming rate, and we still have waiting lists of over 18 ‍months for priority family violence housing programs in Victoria. Asking women at risk of family violence to stay in a violent house for a year and a half is really unacceptable, and we need to reduce the priority housing transfer waiting times by directing additional revenue to family violence priority housing programs. But this change, even though it is a small change, is a welcome one. It is one that means that if you have to flee your house due to family violence you are not then charged land tax on that house that you cannot live in because you fled it because of family violence. I think that it is not going to apply in all cases. It is not going to affect a huge number of people. A huge number of people are affected by family violence. It is just one segment of that affected population that will benefit from this, but it is still really important that we are removing any barrier to leaving a violent home or a violent relationship or a violent situation, so the Greens support that.

The bill also makes some important changes to the Trust for Nature program, and we welcome these because they happened after advocacy from me and the Greens. Trust for Nature works with private landholders to permanently protect habitat on private land for conservation purposes. So it puts conservation covenants on private land, and it is a really great program in terms of preservation of habitat, because as we know, the vast majority of land in Victoria is privately owned and that private land has a huge role to play in terms of meeting our conservation objectives and protecting biodiversity and threatened species. Conservation covenants are hugely popular because many landowners would love to see the habitat and wildlife on their land protected for future generations. Covenants allow these landowners to enter into agreements which protect the habitat and the species on their land for generations to come, and many people leave that as their legacy.

In 2024, after negotiations with the government over the vacant land tax, the Greens actually secured exemptions to the vacant land tax for land being protected under conservation covenants. As part of this the government also announced $2 million as a special fund for Trust for Nature to help them facilitate more nature covenants on private land, particularly vacant land that would have been subject to this tax. It is now exempt because of our negotiations. But the thing was, this $2 million and how it could be used was put into legislation, and that initial legislation was too restrictive on what kind of land that $2 million could be used to then put covenants on. As a result Trust for Nature came to us and said they have not actually really been able to use that $2 million. They have not been able to use that funding that the government already allocated to them due to the really restrictive nature of the legislation, as it was very restrictive as to which kinds of land it could be applied to. So we raised this issue with the government, and I am pleased that we have worked cooperatively with both the minister and also especially the Treasurer to come up with some amendments to put forward to resolve that issue, which will mean that Trust for Nature will now be able to work with a lot more landholders to apply covenants on their land. They will actually be able to use that $2 million in the manner in which it was intended and to protect more land for conservation across Victoria, and that is only a good thing. It delivers a small but not insignificant win for our wildlife and biodiversity. Particularly at a time when we are facing the climate crisis and the collapse of biodiversity that comes with it, we know that we need to do absolutely everything we can to protect habitat. That is why actually a lot more people are putting covenants on their land, because they can see what is happening with climate change, they want to do something practical about it and they want to leave a legacy. So those are two parts of this bill that the Greens are really happy to support – very welcome parts of this bill.

Other parts of the bill require a little bit more scrutiny. One of the most significant aspects of this bill is it extends the 12-month stamp duty concession for off-the-plan developments by another 12 months. We were told last year by the housing minister that this was a one-off stimulus. It was brought in part because interest rates had remained stubbornly high and that meant that developers presumably were having trouble pre-selling their off-the-plan apartments, which was then presumably making it less lucrative for them to build big developments and build new developments. The problem is that we now actually have some data which shows that these tax concessions are overwhelmingly going to wealthy people who are buying expensive property. Last week it was revealed in the Age that one real estate agent smugly proclaimed recently how their client had received a $1.1 million stamp duty ‘sweetener’ from the government to buy a $20 million penthouse apartment in Armadale. Now, I hope in this place that we could all agree, given the current housing affordability crisis that we all agree is happening, that regular Victorian taxpayers really should not be giving $1.1 million as a handout or a sweetener to someone to buy a $20 million luxury penthouse apartment in Armadale. It is not where our taxpayer dollars should be going; in fact it is obscene. It really is obscene.

I would have hoped that would have prompted the Labor government to look at this tax concession and see how it might be tightened up so that it can be targeted at those who most need it, those who most deserve it and those who we collectively as Victorians agree should be getting help to get into the housing market. Unfortunately, instead of doing that – instead of fixing it – what the Labor government has brought to us today is a plan to extend the tax scheme as it is for another 12 months. This decision essentially seems to be driven by the property development lobby. They want taxpayer help to sell the apartments they have built. They say they need more special treatment. They really have the government over a barrel in a way, because the government relies on property developers to build the housing that the government says that they will need to meet their targets.

Members interjecting.

Ellen SANDELL: I am hearing interjections from the other side saying, ‘Who else is going to build it?’ That is true, but the thing is the property development industry then has the Labor government over a barrel in saying, ‘We’re not going to build these apartments unless we get the kind of profits that we want, and in order to do that we need handouts from the taxpayer.’ I do not think that is something the Victorian government thinks is okay. I think it smells kind of bad, particularly when we have developers right now sitting on empty apartments, unsold. We do have cases of developers that have got apartments but are refusing to release them onto the market until they can make the level of profit that they want. It is really bad behaviour, and it is behaviour that adds to the housing affordability crisis. Then these same developers have the gall to go to the government and cry poor, ask for tax handouts and essentially say, ‘We can’t help you meet your housing targets. We’re going to threaten not to build more apartments until we get the profits that we deserve, and we need a handout.’ It is really not on. The Greens are really happy to work with this Labor government on solutions to the housing crisis that work and that are not just about lining the pockets of the property developers.

When this stamp duty concession scheme originally came to the Parliament, the Greens suggested some amendments to cap the scheme so that it would only apply to homes that are genuinely affordable for young people, for single parents, for families, for people in housing stress – people that we all agree need some help to get into the housing market. Those amendments were rejected by the government, and now what we have before us is an extension of the policy for 12 months with no cap on it. It means that anybody can get these sweeteners or these handouts, even if they are buying a $20 million luxury apartment in Armadale. We very much support, as I said, measures that assist people to get into home ownership and that help with the housing affordability crisis, but we will be looking at what amendments we might be able to move in the upper house to try and make this scheme fairer, to ensure that it does work for those who need it most and helps with housing affordability, rather than just being a tax handout to the wealthy who already own multiple properties.

This bill also makes some relatively minor changes to the taxation regime around build-to-rent developments. The Victorian government has bet very big on these build-to-rent developments. Quite a few have popped up in my electorate and even in my neighbourhood of Kensington. Melbourne has 6001 completed build-to-rent apartments and another 18,885 – over 18,000 – approved or under construction. But the thing is that, despite the promises and the model that has been sold to the Victorian government, the developments are not actually providing more affordable housing, which is really unfortunate. They are actually largely a premium product charging above-market rents. The reason the developers like them and we are seeing such a proliferation of them is that governments, including this government, have given the developers significant tax concessions to make them more profitable, and they have become easier to build and more profitable than build-to-sell apartment buildings. These developers get land tax concessions of up to 50 per cent of a cut on the taxable land value for up to 30 years in Victoria, so it is a really significant exemption from land tax. They are also exempt from the absentee owner surcharge, which is applicable to foreign-owned overseas companies and developers that build build-to-rent developments.

There is also – and this is quite concerning – a loophole that allows build-to-rent developers to be exempt from paying the public open space levy to local governments. The public open space levy is really important because it is charged on subdivisions, including apartment developments built for sale, and goes directly towards building more public parks and open spaces. As we know, parks and open spaces are sorely needed in the communities that are getting more developments built. There is no reason, really, why build-to-rent developments should be exempt from that open space levy when identical developments offering apartments for sale – including in my electorate; there are some that were built for sale that had to pay the levy – are just down the road from some that are built to rent that did not have to pay the levy. That does not really seem fair, and it is actually short-changing local governments of a significant amount of the money that is needed to build our new parks.

We need more housing where people want to live, but densification without open space, without amenity, is actually a recipe for unlivable suburbs. I do not think any of us want that. Councils are actually having to pay exorbitant amounts to buy land to retrofit parks and open space after developments, with no contribution from the developers, who are the ones who make all the profit. That is not really acceptable. In my electorate it is not hypothetical; we are actually already seeing it. We are seeing a proliferation of developments in somewhere like Kensington without the local government having the money to be able to build the parks and all the amenity that people expect when they live in the city and really deserve. Kids need to be able to go outside. People need to be able to go outside and walk their dogs. You do not want to live in a place that has no outdoor open space. So the Greens will be looking to move amendments in the other place to close this loophole and ensure that build-to-rent developers are treated the same as everyone else regarding the open space levy. We will also look at whether we should do something around the concessions regarding land tax and the absentee owner surcharge.

Budgets are about choices about what is important – what gets supported and what does not – and I think that million-dollar handouts to $20 million apartments is not what the Victorian government wants to see.

The SPEAKER: Order! The time set down for consideration of items on the government business program has arrived, and I am required to interrupt business.

Motion agreed to.

Read second time.

Third reading

Motion agreed to.

Read third time.

The SPEAKER: The bill will now be sent to the Legislative Council and their agreement requested.