Wednesday, 30 August 2023

Economy and Infrastructure Committee

Inquiry into Land Transfer Duty Fees

Evan MULHOLLAND (Northern Metropolitan) (17:29): I rise to speak on the report tabled yesterday on the inquiry into land transfer duty fees. It is an inquiry I had the great pleasure of being part of and participated in with quite an interest. The issue of stamp duty is a very important one, particularly for my generation, who are struggling to afford homes due to rising fees and housing costs. It is also important to many migrants in my electorate. Just a few facts to break down: under Labor, the median house price in Melbourne has increased from $605,000 to over $1 million, and the price of an apartment has increased from $432,000 to $605,000.

Despite this increase, Labor has not adjusted stamp duty brackets. This means that new home buyers and those upsizing, downsizing or relocating for work are having to pay more stamp duty. Another thing that Mr Davis and I pointed out in our dissenting report is the issue of the brackets of stamp duty concessions. They go from $600,000 and taper off to $750,000, which is a massive issue for people in my age cohort. We heard from a lot of witnesses, like the good folk at YIMBY Melbourne, how the current situation we have – we are now over $1 million for the average house price – is forcing young people to choose basically between a small apartment in the inner city or something out in the growth areas, where this Labor government has not invested in the proper infrastructure and has botched the delivery of housing estates. So we actually called for the threshold to be increased to reflect the current housing market.

Another thing in regard to this – and I heard Mr Batchelor speaking earlier about social housing – is there are musings in the media about their planning takeover, of taking away rights from local communities on housing. Most experts that I spoke to actually considered stronger housing targets as the best way to increase the available supply of housing stock. Speaking to many experts, many developers and many non-profit developers, they will tell you that more often than not it takes longer to go through a process through the minister’s desk than it does to go through the local government planning process. So we are meant to believe that that will be the answer to our housing crisis.

Mr Batchelor spoke about social housing. I just want to point out two examples in my electorate, because the government talk about social housing. There might be some in Southern Metropolitan but there is definitely not in Northern Metropolitan. We saw in 2017 and in 2018, announced in Reservoir and Broadmeadows, new social housing projects. The land in Reservoir was actually meant to be a highway at one stage and has not even been rezoned to have houses on it. So the government has not even moved on it. They announced it in 2017–18 and have not done anything with it. It has been sitting there in some department, doing nothing. But we are meant to believe if we hand all the power to them, they will somehow do things quicker next time, even though they have not taken advantage of it since 2018 with these social housing projects. Hume City Council, which is a Labor council, does not even know any details about the Broadmeadows social housing project, which was announced in 2018, and they are asking the government for more transparency. So I really struggle to see how that planning takeover could get any better than what it is now.

Taxes are also an issue. On the changing from stamp duty to land tax, I do not think we would be able to trust this government. We heard from a lot of witnesses, and no witness could rule out that we would not end up with double taxation – you would get charged the stamp duty and the land tax as well. So you would get hit with taxes twice, which is actually what happened with this government’s Labor mates in the ACT. They promised a phased transition, and they have ended up with both taxes. We know this government introduced 50 new or increased taxes; they love taxes and will not be able to help themselves.