Luke Howarth (Petrie, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise today to speak about the concerns raised in my electorate regarding the Australian Taxation Office's draft ruling on charging GST for mobile home sites. I want to make it clear in this place that I do not support this draft ruling; I do not support it at all. Two months ago, the ATO issued this draft ruling that, if implemented, would mean that suddenly mobile home park residents would be potentially charged an additional $15 per week on top of their usual rental costs. This is based on them currently paying about $150 a week in rent, or $300 a fortnight. By charging GST that will throw an extra $15 a week on top of this, or approximately $780 a year.

The ruling has caused great distress, I might say, to people in my area. The preliminary view in this draft ruling of the ATO is that operators of moveable home estates should pay GST when the operator leases a site to a resident. As I mentioned a moment ago, this ruling has caused great distress. I have a concern that if it comes into law, it will place enormous strain on the weekly budgets of the people I represent. We all know that the cost of living continues to rise, partly due to the implementation of the carbon tax, a tax that before the 2013 election Labor promised to abolish. In my electorate the Labor candidate had brochures put out saying 'Carbon tax abolished'. We are still waiting for that. With continued price hikes for electricity, fuel, water, rates, insurance premiums and other essential items, an additional $15 per week is just going to strain budgets further for the residents, and particularly for the elderly. These people are on pensions, they are also self-managed retirees with limited funds. There are several mobile home sites in my electorate with thousands of residents.

Recently I was contacted by Palm Lakes Resort at Deception Bay about the impact there on the 400 residents that live there. So I got my office to contact them and I went out there to meet them and had them show me around and to speak about this issue. I got there and there were 250 to 300 residents angry about this draft ruling. One of the people there made the point that an extra $15 a week, or $780 a year, multiplied by 400 residents is money that is not going to be spent in the local economy in Deception Bay. It is less cash in that local economy. I agree. These residents do not see a difference between the government and the ATO. It is not government policy, it is an ATO ruling, but they do not see that. I understand that. Since that meeting I have had a petition from Palm Lakes Resort with 403 signatures opposed to this change. I have also been contacted by Golden Bounds, another area in my electorate down in Fitzgibbon, with a further 260 signatures from residents there opposed to the change as well. Kurrajong Sanctuary at Burpengary and other places in Burpengary have written letters and phoned my office. Really, it has caused great distress.

I have read each of the letters and I can see the struggle this draft ruling would have on each and every one if this ruling was to be adopted. With parliament sitting, I immediately contacted the office of the Assistant Treasury, Senator Sinodinos, and I thank him and his staff for rearranging his diary so I could meet with him personally to explain the impacts on the electorate of Petrie. I understand that the ATO is an independent statuary body. However, I believe that we as a government should be doing everything we can to ensure that this draft ruling does not become law. I stand here today to inform the House that action needs to be taken to put a stop to this draft ruling and I will continue to fight to ensure that this draft ruling does not become law.