Wednesday, 19 June 2024

 Rikkie-Lee TYRRELL (Northern Victoria) (18:03): (970) My adjournment this evening is for the Treasurer. My office is receiving call after call and email after email from mum-and-dad investors who find themselves in dire straits. The government’s doubling of the land taxes and the addition to the COVID levy have left small residential property investors in the impossible position of either increasing the rent they charge their tenants or selling their hard-earned investment properties. Many of them have asked: does the Labor government hate small investors? Does the Labor government hate to see people working hard to get themselves ahead? Why do they not want Victorians investing in Victoria? Small mum-and-dad investors are not the super wealthy. They are not big-time investors; they are simply people working hard to try and secure their and their families’ futures. If this continues, Victoria will find itself in the position of not having any investors and the rental crisis deepening further. The action I seek is for the Treasurer to re-evaluate the impossibly high rates of land tax charged to small investors and to stop treating them like his own personal bank.