Jill Hall (Shortland, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I was most disturbed to learn that, on 30 October, the Australian Taxation Office brought down a draft ruling to impose a 30 per cent GST on the site rental of people in relocatable home parks. In the electorate of Shortland there are some 25 relocatable home parks, in which people have chosen to live. It is mainly older residents who live in these relocatable home parks, or manufactured home sites. They pay $300,000, sometimes up to $500,000, to purchase their homes and then they pay rent on the site. The people living in these relocatable home parks are people who have sold their home and have chosen to live this type of lifestyle. They feel secure and they have around them people who enjoy similar circumstances to themselves. They have made this decision based on what they understood the situation to be.

In 2000, the Howard government determined that these village home parks were deemed to be residential premises and therefore exempt from the GST. The ATO has now released this draft ruling, which will force a 10 per cent increase on the rent of over 100 low-income earners. That increase is a minimum, because it is not paid directly by the residents; it is paid by the park owners. The park owners will be able to add an administration cost as well. That could mean an increase of as much as 12 to 13 per cent on the rental.

Before going on to a meeting that took place on Thursday with the Affiliated Residential Park Residents Association, or ARPRA, which is the park residents association, and the ATO, I thought I would share with the House the feelings of some of the people who are living in residential parks. The first is a person who lives at Bevington Shores, which is at Halekulani in my electorate, and who is very disturbed about this:

That will be added onto their existing rental of $300 a fortnight. They go on to say how many parks there are and how many people it will affect. Another letter I would like to read from is from a couple who live in Saliena Avenue in Lake Munmorah:

I might add, public housing has a lengthy waiting time within my area, sometimes in excess of 10 years. I am sure that is pretty constant across the country. They continue:

People made the decision to purchase into relocatable home parks based simply on the fact that there was no GST. There are a number of people in this House who worked very hard to see that people living in residential parks would not have to pay GST on their homes. I would argue that nothing, whatsoever, has changed, but now we have a number of people who will be very badly affected by a decision of the ATO. I am calling on the government—I understand the Treasurer is meeting with the head of the Affiliated Residential Park Residents Association this week—to make sure that this draft ruling is not implemented. I have been contacted by other members at the North Lakes Division of the ARPRA. They are circulating a petition around all the parks. I suggest that members check in the parks in their electorates to make sure that those petitions are structured in the correct way, because I have a feeling that the petitions may be flawed.

I will move, now, to the meeting that took place last week between Affiliated Residential Park Residents Association and the Assistant Commissioner of the Taxation Office. When they discussed definitions, how those definitions needed to change, and how they determined that people living in relocatable home parks should have to pay GST, they went to the Macquarie Dictionary to find out what the definition of caravan park was. That definition did not quite fit in with their perception of the lifestyle that people have chosen by living in relocatable home parks. It is important to note that the industry is very fluid. Lots of changes are taking place. A further comment made by the Taxation Office was, 'These villages look different from how they looked in 2000.' Looking different does not justify trying to slug pensioners with an increase in their rents.

People have pointed out that there is a possibility that this change would lead to an increase of 12 per cent to 15 per cent in rents. The tax office said that this would not be retrospective. That is good. People living in relocatable home parks were worried that this charge would be retrospective. One thing has changed since the tax office made their original decision. People wanting to make submissions to the Taxation Office had to do so by 29 November. As a result of this meeting on Thursday, submissions will now be taken up until 20 December.

Because of the way some of these parks have evolved there are sometimes still two, three or maybe half a dozen caravans there. It is important to note that one or two caravans at such a park does not justify an exemption; there has to be a significant number. That information came straight from the Australian Taxation Office.

This situation is not good enough. It reverses a decision of the Howard government. It reverses statements made by the government in the election that they would not extend the GST. It is not a decision of government; it is a decision of the tax office that will impact on vulnerable people, whom we represent in this House. I am not going to see these vulnerable people being done over in this way. It is an absolute disgrace. We cannot allow it to happen. These people made decisions to purchase a home based on the fact that they would not have to pay GST on the site rental. This will force them to sell their homes. I call on the government to ensure that this does not go ahead.

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