Jill Hall (Shortland, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to 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.

Bert Van Manen (Forde, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank you Mr Deputy Speaker, and take this opportunity to congratulate you on your elevation to the Speaker's panel. I thank the member for Shortland for bringing this motion to the House. I spoke to her about it in the chamber last week, following a number of bits of correspondence and phone calls to our office about this issue. This issue has arisen from a review by the Australian Taxation Office but has been brought about by a long history of court cases to consider the proper application of GST to different types of property. As the member for Shortland has correctly pointed out, back in 2000 the then Howard government successfully sought to have GST not applied to residences in mobile home parks.

Since then I think we all recognise that there has been a significant growth in that industry. I disagree with the comments from the member for Shortland that people bought into mobile or relocatable home parks on the basis that there was no GST on their site rent. I think people had far more salient reasons for purchasing in those parks than the fact that they would not have to pay GST. There are a lot of benefits in terms of the community that these parks create and the security these people feel, particularly if they are travelling regularly. People can lock up their homes and leave, knowing that their contents and their homes will be safe. It also allows them to live in a smaller property that does not take so much care and maintenance at a time in their lives when they want to enjoy retirement. They do not have to look after a big block of land and a big house. There are far more reasons for people going into mobile home parks than the fact that they do not have to pay GST on site fees.

When you look at the history of this matter you find that this review has been under consideration for some time now. The former assistant Treasurer, David Bradbury knew about it as well. The Australian tax office had a draft ruling to see whether residents in removable home parks, when they owned their own dwelling on a rented site, would be eligible for their 10 per cent GST.

As I said earlier, over the past couple of weeks my office has received many inquiries from residents at a number of the parks around the electorate. Over 100,000 Australians currently live in removable home dwellings in these parks and the majority of these people are pensioners on either the full or a part pension. It is also interesting to note that, with that, they receive rent assistance from Centrelink. So Centrelink treats these site fees as rent and provides people with rent assistance.

In Forde we have a number of these villages, such as Palm Lake Resorts, which has five different villages, and Little Gems, which has two. We also have Greenbank village resort, Claremont Resort, and River Glen at Bethania. In these resorts there are some 2½ thousand home sites and roughly 3,700 residents who would likely be affected by these changes.

We recognise that the majority of these residents, after the proposed changes—which will result in an increase of between $500 and $800 a year in their site fees as a result of the application of the GST—will face, in certain circumstances, financial hardship. We fully recognise and understand that. However, it is instructive to note that we have a member of the now opposition also talking about cost of living pressures for people, and yet, at the same time, failing to recognise the cost of living pressures that the former government heaped on the Australian community—in particular, on residents in mobile home parks who are also on fixed incomes.

The coalition has quite clearly stated that we are committed to reducing cost of living pressures and fighting for these people. Whilst we acknowledge that it does not fully offset the cost impacts here, one way that we as a government believe we can help people in Australia, particularly those living in these mobile home parks, to reduce their cost of living pressures is to remove the carbon tax. Reducing cost of living pressures on electricity and other essential items goes directly to the amount of money people have to spend every week. Does it take away from the desire to not see this draft ruling be continued through to implementation, which would probably be in the middle of next year? No, it does not. We do not want to see any additional cost pressures on those who are already struggling to make ends meet. And I want to make this very clear: the ATO has not yet made any firm decision on whether the ruling will apply; this is a draft ruling, and we have communicated our concerns to the Assistant Treasurer. We are also contacting the residents in the various parks to get them to put a submission to the tax office to ensure that their concerns are made known to the tax office in relation to this matter. The Taxation Office will, once these submissions close on 20 December, consider those various arguments and then make an informed decision.

So I fully appreciate and understand the concerns of the residents in these mobile home parks, and we will work as a government always to look to make the situation better for all Australians. As part of that, we will continue to fight for the residents in these parks to help protect their standard of living. But it is not only dealing with this GST matter; there are many other matters to deal with, in terms of getting rid of the carbon tax and reducing cost of living pressures more generally, that will benefit our residents in the various parks.

Justine Elliot (Richmond, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise in support of the member for Shortland's motion, and I urgently call on the Prime Minister and the Liberal-National government to act to ensure these residents do not have to pay GST on the site rental for their mobile homes. I will continue to hold this new government to account for a whole range of issues that impact on the people of the North Coast, and this is one issue of grave concern. Since this matter was first brought to my attention, in the past weeks I have been inundated with concerns from very deeply distressed constituents who quite simply cannot afford this rent increase.

Throughout the nation, mobile home parks provide affordable housing for hundreds of thousands of Australians every day, particularly pensioners. On the New South Wales North Coast, thousands of local residents live in these parks. These are people who are already doing it very tough when it comes to any increases in the cost of living, and they simply cannot afford to pay an extra 10 per cent GST on their rent. It is also important to note that mobile home parks are very strong communities and often provide vital support and friendship for those residents, and this government has again severely underestimated how vocal these groups will be in fighting the government to stop this unfair cash grab.

We have had this fight before and the community has spoken out on this issue before, as we have heard some speakers mention today. When the Howard government introduced the GST, it caused great distress as to how it was to be applied to mobile homes in caravan parks. They disregarded the effect the GST could have on the most vulnerable in society and those living in these parks. They did not think to protect those who live in mobile homes by specifying their exclusion when they drafted the legislation. It was cruel then that those most vulnerable in our community were being hit with this GST, and it is equally cruel now. Back then, the people of the North Coast fought back and later forced the then Howard government to back down—a great community victory. And the victory in 2001 meant that mobile home parks were to be deemed residential premises and were therefore exempt from GST. However, just a few weeks ago, on 30 October 2013, following a review, the Australian tax office released a draft ruling to say that these mobile home estates would no longer be considered residential premises and therefore no longer exempt from GST.

Given that initial community outrage 12 years ago, and the outrage in the past few weeks, I cannot understand why the Liberal-National party have not acted and spoken out against this unfair ruling and stated what action they will take. What I find particularly appalling is that the local National Party on the North Coast have remained completely silent on this issue whilst their party is looking to bring in this unfair GST increase in the mobile home parks. In that shameful grouping I will include the state National Party members of parliament, the National Party councils and indeed local National Party branch members—all have been silent while their party is bringing in this most devastating GST affecting thousands of people in mobile home parks. In fact, they will probably remain silent; as they have shown on other issues, they just do not seem to care about the most vulnerable in our area on the North Coast.

I would like to also take this opportunity to pay tribute to all those locals in my area who have spoken out about this very cruel and nasty plan. I would particularly like to give credit to Mr Ken Cummins from the Tweed branch of the Affiliated Residential Parks Residents Association and the attention that he has brought to this very important issue. Ken has highlighted that, with the imposition of the GST on mobile home rents, rent increases in some parts will be up to $50 a fortnight. This means that those who can least afford it could be forced to sacrifice some very important everyday necessities, because of the low incomes they are on. This is an increase they simply cannot afford.

I would also like to acknowledge the fact that many of our local media on the North Coast have done a great job in highlighting this issue, particularly the Tweed Sun. I think their headline on 14 November said it all: 'Sneaky move: federal government GST plan targets park rents'. The article quotes Ken Cummins saying that it would impact more than 2,000 people in Tweed parks alone. Mr Cummins also highlighted the fact that they have a local petition which already has more than 1,500 signatures. So you can see that a lot of people, in signing those petitions, are concerned.

The online Echo, on 13 November, had the headline 'GST hike on mobile-home pensioners "devastating"'. The article outlined the concerns of the many local pensioners who will be impacted by this. The headline in the online My Daily News was 'Parkies face 10 per cent rent rise from GST proposal'. I also note the local ABC has raised the issue on a number of occasions. The reason they continue to raise the issue is that most people who have been in that area over the past decade realised many years ago what a big issue it was and have mobilised very quickly, particularly the people within those mobile home parks. It is not just Ken; he has a lot of people out and signing this petition. There is very widespread concern across the community, and, as I said, it is causing great distress to very vulnerable people.

In light of that, I would like to conclude by urgently calling on the Prime Minister and the Liberal-National party to listen to the concerns of people across the country. I ask them urgently to act and to ensure these residents do not have to pay GST on the site rental for their mobile homes.

Rob Mitchell (McEwen, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I call the member for Fisher and welcome him back to parliament.

Mal Brough (Fisher, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thanks, Mr Deputy Speaker; I appreciate that. What disappoints me, at the outset, is that this chamber is supposed to be about us looking after our constituents, and what the member for Richmond just did was nothing but base party politics, frightening her constituents in an unnecessary fashion. This is not a decision of the Abbott government. This is not a decision full stop. This is a draft ruling by the ATO which commenced under the Labor government. It was not the Labor government's fault that it was commenced. It was commenced as a result of independent personnel putting propositions to the ATO asking the ATO to give a definitive ruling.

Let me take the member back to 2000. The legislation was put before the House here for the introduction of the GST. That legislation was then amended before the first day, 1 July 2000, before the introduction, to ensure that there would be a concessional rate of GST applied to these locations. It was fought by the then member for Richmond, Larry Anthony. He was the one who actually worked on behalf of his constituents to ensure one of two things, and he was not alone.

Opposition Members:

Opposition members interjecting—

What really gets my goat is that you both stood here today playing base politics, rather than really being interested in your public, so that you could get stuff into your newspapers rather than trying to deal with the matter. Let's tell the truth. The truth is the member for Richmond should have been saying that this is not a decision of government but that we all, on both sides of this chamber, can and should express the concerns of our electorates and we should ensure that the ATO is given that information—that everybody puts forward the information.

Let's get to the points. First and foremost, this is a draft ruling. It now behoves all of us to ensure that the public puts forward the concerns that we are echoing here, and I support the member for Shortland for bringing this forward. Secondly, at the moment there are two rulings. There is a ruling that applies that the mobile home parks can use input tax credits. In fact, I think you will find that is where this is coming from: potential investors who want to be able to use input credits. Therefore, it is to their benefit and it is to the detriment of the personnel who live there. Also, they do pay GST at the moment. It is at 5.5 per cent. It is a concessional rate, which means that when that is applied it should actually be equal. In other words, the parks pay it and they have their offsets. It is technical.

The bottom line from my perspective is this. This is a very important part of the housing mix in Australia today, and it is growing—not only for pensioners but also as a first homeowners option. What we want to do is give people certainty. The reality is that the ATO is totally separate from government. I am sure that the learned members opposite would have to agree with that. They had a job to do; they have done it. They have made some mistakes in their ruling and in saying that there has been considerable change to the mobile home circumstances. That is not true. Maybe they misinterpreted it back in 2000. That is possible. What we are saying is that, in the event that they come to the conclusion that mobile home estates are not part of commercial residential premises, it is my belief that—to protect the people that are in that situation and those who are looking at it as a housing option, whether they be first homeowners, retirees or those who are just opting for this type of housing—no additional impost should be put on them.

I am not going to stand here and play politics. All of us should be putting our constituent matters first. When a government is to blame, they should put up their hand and say, 'I did it.' When they put in a carbon tax, they should say, 'I did it.' Admit it and say that was a deliberate choice. This is a decision of the ATO. It is a draft ruling. It is up to us to mobilise those who stand to lose by it to say that this is wrong. Let's make sure that the ruling that was agreed before the introduction of the tax on 1 July 2000 and the amendments that were made, are honoured.

This is not the first, and it will not be the last, time that draft rulings will come forward that we will disagree with. For goodness sake—if you have learnt nothing from the last six years, learn that base, partisan politics is not what the public want. Stand up here and argue the case on behalf of the constituents that you represent, but do not start throwing around blame like confetti because it looks good in your local paper. It belittles the people that are doing it, it belittles this chamber and it does nothing to progress the debate. I support the motion. I will support it in government, and I will ask my constituents to ensure that they have an input to the ATO on this important issue.

Mrs Bronwyn Bishop (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I call the member for Charlton and welcome him to parliament as well.

Pat Conroy (Charlton, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker. I congratulate you on your appointment to the Speaker's Panel. I find it incredibly ironic that the member for Fisher was taking us to task for petty politics, given the fact that both he and the member for Forde, in quite a desperate and malicious attempt, tried to link this to the carbon price issue. This is yet another example of the coalition government hitting low-income earners and pensioners.

The member for Fisher is quite right that in 2000 the Howard government did take action—and I applaud that—because of urging on both sides of parliament to deem these village home parks to be residential premises. However, the new government through the ATO is planning on applying the 10 per cent GST to older residents who own their own dwellings on rented village sites.

As other speakers have noted, this will affect around 100,000 Australians who live in this form of affordable accommodation. This is hitting 100,000 Australians who are on fixed incomes that are often quite low. In my electorate of Charlton, up to 1,000 people will be affected. These are most notably in areas such as Bonnells Bay, Morisset and Toronto. On the member for Forde's figures, the hit will be somewhere between $500 and $800.

My office has been contacted by many residents worried by these changes. For example, Lynne Wilson, president of the Grange village residents committee, has told my office, 'We are prepared to do anything. People in this village are panicked by these increases.' She has spoken with other local residential park presidents and they tell her that their residents are terrified too. This is just one piece of feedback about the level of concern out there in the community that has been noted by both this side and, to be fair, the member for Fisher as well.

The residents association estimate that 95 per cent of residents in these parts are pensioners. According to the association, there are no changes to park practices that justify the application of the GST, and this was echoed by the last speaker. However, it should be noted that, unless there is intervention, it will be the Abbott government that will be happy to slug some of the poorest people in my electorate and in other electorates in the country. In other words, the new government is even meaner than the Howard government, and that is something that is quite remarkable.

It is incumbent on the government to explain what has changed and, if they cannot, to intervene and try to avoid this outcome. They should not be hiding behind the ATO. This change will affect 100,000 people on the lowest incomes, and it is a matter of fundamental inequity.

I will turn to some of the comments by the member for Forde when he was trying to rationalise this $800 hit. He tried to link it to the carbon price and the impact on pensioners. It is well worth noting that the carbon price had a 0.7 per cent impact on the consumer price index and, in return, we lifted the pension by 1.7 per cent, well above the cost-of-living impact. That is an example of a government recognising the cost-of-living impact of a measure and compensating low- and middle-income earners for that.

The hit from this particular measure will be $800. It was quite desperate to try to link that to their flawed claims on cost-of-living pressures from the carbon price that are quite mischievous and based on hypothetical scenarios. What is more important to acknowledge is the $800 hit from this and the $1,300 hit that will occur to families from Direct Action. This $1,300 figure comes from the Treasury costings very recently. That means that within the first 100 days of the new government we have seen a $2,100 hit on poor and low-income earners in places like Charlton. So this is a hugely important issue. I applaud the member for Shortland for drawing it to our attention. I certainly support the member's motion and I urge the government to rectify this matter.

Mal Brough (Fisher, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

by leave—I will not take too much time. Can we just ask the next speakers from the Labor Party to answer a couple of basic questions. We accept that the member for Shortland is concerned about this, as we all are. But I say to the member for Shortland—not so much the member who just addressed us because he is only a new member here—that this issue was actually brought to the attention of the public by the ATO, saying that it was going to have a draft ruling, more than 12 months ago—12 months under the Labor government. It was brought to the attention of the then Assistant Treasurer. I was an Assistant Treasurer and I know that you have backbench meetings and that this would have been raised. I just ask the next contributor to the debate to answer: did any Labor member stand in this place in the 12 months under the Labor government throughout 2012 saying, 'This should not change. This is correct'? Did anyone raise it or are we actually now at the eleventh hour trying to create blame for a government? I am not blaming the Labor government for it, but I am saying to those opposite: if you raised it then, were you blaming your side of government? Or are we actually here to try to rectify the issue? That is what we should be trying to do.

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

by leave—I would like to answer. I refer the honourable member to the fact that this draft ruling was made only on 30 October. Once the draft ruling was made, I decided that it was of such great importance, with it set to impact on so many residents and so many people who live within the Shortland electorate, that the appropriate place to discuss it was here in the parliament and that it was also appropriate that members work with their constituents to put in submissions to make sure that this ruling remains only a draft ruling and does not come into play. If the member had listened to my contribution to the debate, he would have heard that that was what I was talking about and he would have realised that this is a very important issue and one that needs to be addressed immediately by us here in this parliament. From today, we need to go back to our constituencies and we need to ensure, as I mentioned in my contribution to this debate, that those petitions that have been circulated around all the residential parks within our electorates are actually petitions that can be accepted by this parliament. We need to ensure that residents of parks within our electorates put in submissions to the tax office by 20 December.

I was very disappointed by part of the contributions by those on the other side. This is an issue that impacts on the lives of people, and it is not an issue that should be played with politically like the two speakers from the government tried to do.

Stephen Jones (Throsby, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Regional Development and Infrastructure) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

In 1957 an Illawarra resident by the name of Eric Cleary built a caravan park named the Surfrider Caravan Park in the Illawarra for the sole purpose of providing housing for low-income people. He would be turning in his grave if he saw this ruling, which, as the member for Shortland has advised us, was published in October this year. I congratulate the member for Shortland for taking the first opportunity available to her to bring this motion before the House. In the 55 years since the Surfrider Caravan Park was established, it has continued to serve its valuable purpose of providing low-cost housing to low-income people in the Illawarra. In fact, it is still owned and operated by Mr Cleary's wife, Ada.

I have a number of caravan parks in my electorate: the Windang Beach Tourist Park; the Lake Windemere Caravan Park, at Windang; the South Pacific Park Village, at Windang; Jettys by the Lake, again at Windang; the Moss Vale Village Caravan Park; and the Mittagong Caravan Park. Most, if not all, of these would have permanent residents. Most, if not all of them, would have weekend renters, people who have a site that they use as a weekender. And, because of the shortage of rental accommodation in my electorate, most, if not all, caravan parks are also a home for emergency accommodation or last-resort housing for many, many people.

For these residents, every cent counts. They were concerned, with the introduction of the GST, that they would be hit with additional costs and in that respect had some relief that movable home sites were finally treated as exempt from the operation of the GST. Indeed, we all recall, in the recent election, the coalition, led by Tony Abbott, giving a rock-solid guarantee that there would be no extension of the GST—no increase of the GST. That was only a few weeks ago. And now we discover that this is about to be reversed.

We have an opportunity to do something about it. In fact, members opposite have an opportunity to do something about it. They have an opportunity to go into their party room and say to their Treasurer and to their Prime Minister, 'This must not happen.'

The lowest income earners in my electorate cannot afford the burden of being slugged with the GST on their rental accommodation. This is discrimination, because, if these people were lucky enough to be able to access rental accommodation anywhere else, in any of the suburbs that I have mentioned, they would not be paying GST. Quite simply, this draft ruling represents discrimination against people who are permanent residents in caravan parks. The effect of this ruling is to discriminate against the people who can afford it the least, some of the most disadvantaged, some of the people with the lowest incomes in our community.

I have already been contacted by my constituents, who are concerned about these changes—constituents including Marie McCormick of Surfrider Caravan Park—and I welcome the first opportunity I have had to come into this House and raise their concerns. Many at Surfrider are there because they cannot afford normal rent in the tight rental market. They have been priced out of the mainstream housing market. On their fixed incomes, most of them get barely $800 a fortnight. Marie currently pays about $110 a week, $220 a fortnight, for her two-bedroom demountable home. Under the new GST laws, this would amount to more than $20 extra rent per fortnight—on a fixed income. That may not sound like a lot to you. It may not sound like a lot to the member for Fisher. But it is a lot to the people who are on a fixed income, a low income, who are living in these places.

So I call upon those opposite. I note that the member for Fisher, who has been away from us for a while, has called on us not to introduce politics into this matter. I have to say that that is a bit like getting a lecture from Ronnie Biggs on fare evasion—isn't it, Deputy Speaker. This is the guy who introduced some of the most base politics into the last election campaign and stands on the same side of the chamber as those who took every opportunity available to them in the last parliament to bring politics into every single matter. I call upon the member for Fisher and all of those opposite to do their darndest to ensure that this draft ruling never makes law. (Time expired)

Debate adjourned.