Slade Brockman (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise tonight to highlight an issue that affects many Australians directly or indirectly—that is, the burden of taxation on many Australian individuals. I'm not going to talk about income tax tonight. We've talked about that a lot today, and people understand income tax very well. I'm going to talk about the burden of some state taxes on Australian businesses, and the irony of those on the Left, who supposedly care about people being able to get into affordable housing, when the incentives—particularly for property developers—are constantly in the negative frame because of the ridiculously high taxation rates that are charged.

I'll give you an example, Mr Acting Deputy President McGrath. This is real-world. This was described to me by an individual in Western Australia a few months ago. This example is about land tax. A particular property's land tax bill has gone from $16,000 per annum to $170,000 per annum in a little over a decade. Now, for those who can work that out in their head, that is an increase of around a thousand per cent in the taxation rate on property ownership in this particular state. It is a Labor state. I'm not going to say where it is. I don't want to identify the individual involved. The point is that, over that period, the value of that land has certainly not gone up by 1,000 per cent or anything like it. It may have doubled over that 12- or 13-year period but it certainly hasn't gone up by a thousand per cent. Actually, in the last two or three years it has probably gone backwards because of where these particular buildings are located.

When those opposite and those in the crossbench wish to talk about the importance of affordable properties being developed in the marketplace, they can't just talk in isolation about the things we do in this place. They have to look at the whole ecosystem of development in this country. One clear factor having a massive negative impact on future development is state and territory governments that are legislating ridiculous increases in taxation on property owners, for the simple reason that they're a soft target. They're a very soft target. Then those on the Left wonder why there aren't enough houses and apartments being developed and built to meet demand. You don't have to look much further than the thousand per cent increase in land tax in this particular jurisdiction. That is never going to be an incentive to new development being undertaken. It's never going to be an incentive for people to see the new property developments that I assume all jurisdictions want to see. They say they want to see them but then they tax the life out of them. This isn't the way to get economic activity in this country. We need to take a serious look at the states' and territories' land tax regimes and the way they are negatively impacting property development in this country.