Kay Hull (Riverina, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

The member for Sydney does not like anything that may be coming out that may just be factual rather than a slight case of fiction. But we must agree that the First Home Owners Scheme has assisted over 973,000 Australians to purchase their first home since 1 July 2000, with over $7.2 billion worth of grants being distributed to date. The states love to take credit for, but never put money toward, the billions of dollars worth of grants.

A problem has been highlighted. But it was not highlighted by the member for Sydney in her address to the parliament. It has actually been highlighted that, yes, we have these increasing numbers of people owning their homes, but do you know what the problem is? We have found that the problem is, as the Property Council of Australia believes, that government taxes and charges are now the second-highest costs faced by new home buyers, behind construction costs. Do you want to know who leads the field in government taxes and charges? It is the state governments. I quote from an article in the Australian on 21 March 2007:

State governments are driving Australia’s housing crisis.

That was not mentioned in the member for Sydney’s address to the House—that the wall-to-wall Labor state governments are driving the housing crisis:

... with stamp duty on residential conveyances alone tipped to hit $8 billion by 2007-08.

The article goes on to say:

Taxes on a typical house and land package have grown—

‘have grown’; not ‘are’ but ‘have grown’—

... by an average $77,000 in the past six years.

See this speech in context