Peter Whish-Wilson (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

Immigrants do not own nine properties in this country. What a stupid notion put forward by One Nation. But that should not surprise any of us in here at all.

The Greens have over the years wanted to get rid of capital gains tax concessions and negative gearing. We have recently put forward a very good proposal for swapping stamp duty for land taxes. We are happy to push the boundaries on housing reform and we are happy to lead the national debate in this area. We put forward an innovative way for the federal government to assist the states to transition from the worst form of tax, stamp duty, which is a tax on transactions—even Senator Paterson agrees with that—to the best form, which is a broad based land tax. Almost every economist and housing industry group in the country agrees that this reform needs to happen. But no-one has suggested it yet, because they are worried about political campaigns.

I am not saying that this whole debate is not complex and complicated; it is, and we have to look at it in a very holistic manner. But this particular proposal, putting forward a broad based stamp duty reduction or scrapping stamp duty and replacing it with a land tax, will do four important things. It would reduce the cost of buying a house for young and low-income Australians and free up those cherished family homes for new homeowners—because stamp duty stops older Australians from resizing to more appropriate housing. Public infrastructure investment by governments would be recaptured. Senator Paterson says, 'Why don't we just release more supply?' What are the reasons we do not release more supply? We do not have proper government investment in infrastructure in outer suburbs and in rural and regional communities in this country. On housing affordability, the best way to solve that crisis on the supply side is investing in productive, long-term infrastructure such as public transport. Where property values increase because they are close to public transport, land tax collections will rise, and that is smart, and that is money we can use for schools and hospitals. It will improve rental supply and rental housing standards for tenants. Investors speculating and sitting on underutilised and vacant properties would decrease, which of course is very important, because a lot of supply, as Senator Paterson refuses to mention, is actually hoarded. It is sat on and not made available for rent and for providing a fix for the housing affordability crisis.

We are happy to provide details to senators in this chamber and to have this debate here today, because that is exactly what we should be doing in the Senate: we should be getting on with brave reform and helping young and low-income Australians tackle the housing affordability crisis.