Wednesday, 11 September 2024

Short Stay Levy Bill 2024

Second reading

Debate resumed on motion of Tim Pallas:

That this bill be now read a second time.

Brad ROWSWELL (Sandringham) (11:13): I rise to address the Short Stay Levy Bill 2024. On commencing my contribution, by leave, I seek the opportunity to speak on this bill for an hour.

Leave refused.

Brad ROWSWELL: It is a real shame actually, because I have so much material before me that I could quite easily fill an hour, perhaps more than that, because of not only the circumstances in which the government has brought the bill to the house but the lack of consultation with industry.

This bill is a real shame because it introduces into this house and into the Victorian statute books potentially Labor’s 55th new or increased tax since coming to government. That is right, in the last 10 ‍years, after 10 years of the Andrews, now Allan, Labor government, there have been 55 introduced or increased taxes, and this is number 55. In the middle of a cost-of-living crisis Victorians do not need to be taxed more than they already are. They need a government that understands the circumstance, and they need a government that will tax them less. You do not tax people more and expect things to be cheaper. You do not tax things more and expect them to be more affordable. In fact, if you tax things more, things get more expensive, and that is the case with this new tax. The government refers to this new tax as their short-stay levy. I refer to it as Labor’s 55th new or increased tax, their holiday and tourism tax, because that will be the impact of this bill. It is a tax on holidays. It is a tax on tourism. Frankly, what sort of mug taxes a holiday? What sort of mug taxes tourism? Well, this Labor government does both, and Victorians are paying the price because of it.

I am sincerely grateful for the engagement that I have had with a number of stakeholders in relation to preparing this bill report and the opposition ahead of this bill being considered today. I am grateful for the input of organisations such as the Expedia Group; the Victorian Chamber of Commerce and Industry; the Victoria Tourism Industry Council; the Property Council, Victoria; Airbnb; the Real Estate Institute of Victoria; the Urban Development Institute of Australia; the Short Term Accommodation Association Australia; Accessible Accommodation – and I will come back to Ashlee Morton a little bit later; Master Builders Victoria; Great Ocean Road Regional Tourism group; Alloggio; Quickstay; Mannai Welfare Housing Corporation; Tourism and Transport Forum Australia; and the Australia and New Zealand Short Term Rental Association.

I can say with absolute clarity and absolute certainty that this bill is friendless. Amongst the stakeholders that I have engaged with, this bill is friendless. There is not one person or organisation that I have engaged with on this bill that thinks that this is a good idea or that it will have the impact that the government states it will. Airbnb has said:

The proposed levy will apply only to short-term rental accommodation, creating an uneven playing field that puts everyday Victorians who share their home behind large corporate hotel chains.

Expedia Group has said:

We believe the short-term rental sector is not the cause or solution to housing pressures, any levy should be fair and apply to all accommodation types.

The Victoria Tourism Industry Council has said:

From our initial conversations with Treasury, we are deeply concerned that the Victorian Government does not fully understand the landscape of the short-stay market and the unintended consequences of this levy.

The Victorian Chamber of Commerce and Industry has said:

There is undeniably a need for more social and affordable housing, but the short stay levy is another tax on Victorians that doesn’t exist in other states and territories. It makes our state less attractive to visitors and puts businesses who rely on tourism at a distinct disadvantage.

The Great Ocean Road Regional Tourism group has said:

This is a tax on the visitor economy which takes money out of the industry. It’s another hit to our sector after we already experienced severe funding cuts to tourism in the 2024/25 State budget.

The Short Term Accommodation Association Australia has said:

Singling out short stay accommodations, while commercial short stays are exempt, disproportionately targets small businesses, and mum and dad investors in Regional Victoria.

These are just some of the responses that I have received from stakeholders that the government has said that it has consulted with. But if they had actually consulted, they would have listened, and on this occasion, as on other occasions, the government has not listened.

The government has said that this is about more housing, but the government has failed to demonstrate that. I would be very keen to hear from government members who contribute to this debate today – very, very keen – about the exact number of houses that they expect to become available in the long-term rental market or in the affordable housing space, because to date the government has not been able to demonstrate that. They say that that is their policy intent. I respect their policy intent. We do need more housing in Victoria. But taxing short-stays will not achieve that outcome, which says to me that this is nothing more than a tax grab from a government who has the highest debt in the nation. This tax will not solve the housing crisis in Victoria. Victoria’s rental vacancy rate is currently at a historic low, estimated to be between 1 and 2 per cent. There is no evidence to support that a tax on short-stays will actually boost the supply of long-term rentals, and the government has failed to provide that evidence as well.

Victoria’s housing crisis is felt right across Victoria – right across Victoria, in regional Victoria and in metropolitan Melbourne. According to Airbnb, 50 per cent of short-stay rentals are positioned in regional Victoria. Pressuring regional investors to sell or put their homes on the long-term market will not solve the rental crisis felt right across the state. For example, if you owned a sizeable property on the Mornington Peninsula, for argument’s sake, if that property was then shifted to potentially be on the long-term rental market or put up for sale into the sale market, frankly there are first home buyers around Victoria that would not be able to afford that particular home. So it is a false argument from the government to say that forcing sizeable homes in places like the Mornington Peninsula onto the long-term rental market or onto the sale market will actually improve housing in this state. That is simply, simply wrong.

It is another hit. This tax is another hit to Victoria’s tourism industry. It will do more harm than good, dissuading tourists from visiting Victorian regions. The Shadow Minister for Tourism, Sport and Events is at the table with me today, and I am sure that he will go into greater detail on this. But as has been shared with us by the Victoria Tourism Industry Council:

During Covid, Victoria relinquished its number two spot on the ladder behind NSW to Queensland on the metric for total overall tourism spend by visitors. Over time –

so says VTIC –

we have failed to narrow that gap quarter on quarter since 2021.

They go on to say:

When we consider our position on the national scale, Victoria significantly lags behind NSW, who has hit a staggering $53 billion in total spend by visitors to the state, with Queensland firmly in the number two spot achieving $41 billion in total spend. While Victoria is growing quarter on quarter in performance, the growth of our major competitors in Australia is outpacing our success.

So again, taxing something is not going to incentivise getting more tourists to Victoria. In fact it will push them further and further away.

There is also an impact on the visitor economy in tourist regions within this state, communities which rely upon tourism dollars to survive. There are many of those communities around this state, and frankly, if visitors to those regional communities in particular are hit with a greater tax and are spending more because of Labor’s 55th new or increased tax, they will spend less in those communities – and over a period of time Labor’s tax adds up. This is not just a tax on the accommodation element, this is a tax on accommodation plus all the service charges that come with staying in a short-term rental. It is a tax on all of those things, and it will cost Victorians at a time when they can least afford it.

It will have an unfair impact on Victorian small businesses specifically in regional Victoria, but truthfully, all Victorians will be punished by this tax. Around 40 per cent of those who stay in short-term rentals are not in fact tourists. They are FIFO workers, they are frontline workers, they are people who are fleeing domestic violence and they are vulnerable Victorians who for whatever reason or circumstance are not able to stay in their own long-term rental accommodation or in their own home and need emergency housing. Around 40 per cent of people who stay in short-term rentals are not in fact tourists, so all of those Victorians will also be subjected to this new Labor tax.

This tax disproportionately impacts women. According to Airbnb, 65 per cent of their hosts are female, and in many communities short-stay accommodation provides a revenue source and flexible work from home. Women dominate the short-stay sector, with the majority of hosts over the age of 50. It is also important to note that women over 50 are the demographic most at risk of becoming homeless, so short-stay platforms can serve as a form of economic empowerment. Labor’s tax will hurt all Victorians and will place women at a competitive disadvantage in the marketplace. I just wonder if the Labor government considered that fact when they were bringing this tax to the Parliament today, and I dare say they have not.

This tax is in fact the largest, the highest short-stay levy of any such levy in the entire world. At a proposed rate of 7.5 per cent it will be the highest in the world. Councils also have the power – in fact this bill more or less green-lights councils to slap additional taxes on short-term stays, meaning there will be different rules across the 79 local government areas. There is no consistency across the state in terms of the regulations and the taxes that local governments can place on short-stays. It is going to be an absolute and utter mess. It is terrible for that reason. And 100 per cent of the tax will in fact go to paying off Labor’s debt. It will not actually go back to the regions from which it is collected.

Let us have a frank conversation. Homes Victoria, the state government body charged with producing affordable housing and social housing in this state, is currently about $180 million in the red. The Labor government, or the Treasurer, when this bill was first spoken of last year, suggested that this tax would raise about $75 million in revenue. That has been significantly revised down to $60 million. There are people that I have spoken to who question whether the revenue stream of $60 million is actually appropriate or otherwise, because they think that, especially with council elections coming up in October this year, there will be some councils that use this opportunity that this government has given them to effectively ban short-stays in their own municipalities, which would further reduce the anticipated revenue as well. This revenue coming from this new tax will not be put into new homes. The government says it will be put into new homes. It will not be put into new homes, it will be put into paying off the highest debt in the nation. It will be put into paying off the debt of Homes Victoria, which currently sits at about $180 million. It will go into paying Labor’s interest bill on their debt, which is climbing to $26 million a day, each and every day, in just a few short years time.

This government has not considered a number of circumstances when bringing this bill to the Parliament. Yesterday I met with Ashlee Morton. In fact I welcomed Ashlee Morton, together with the shadow minister for tourism, to the Parliament. Ashlee is from Accessible Accommodation. On first meeting Ashlee I found her to be unassuming but forthright and driven. Ashlee is wheelchair-bound. She is a single mum. She has two teenage children. She is a powerful advocate. There are Victorians around the state – disabled Victorians – who choose to stay in short-term rental accommodation such as Airbnb and other platforms because it enables them and their families to have the greater support and flexibility that they need when they are going on holidays. They choose short-stays over hotel accommodation because hotel accommodation does not fit the needs that they have when they are travelling either by themselves or with their families, as Ashlee explained yesterday. If equipment is required to support a disabled Victorian that is not in a hotel setting, sure, it can be hired, but it can be hired for a minimum period of time.

So if Ashlee, for example, was travelling for work reasons for one or two nights and required additional equipment to support her with her needs, yes, she could hire it, but that is frankly a pain in the backside, because often the people who loan out or who rent out this type of equipment have a minimum time for which it can be rented. It could be one week or it could be up to four weeks, which means additional and unnecessary costs for Ashlee, whereas there are short-stay accommodation places in Victoria at the moment which have built within their property offering the supports that some disabled Victorians need. In fact Ashlee was telling us only yesterday that if you have a severe disability and wish to travel in this state and you are requiring things like lifters and high–low beds and other equipment that disabled Victorians rely upon, in terms of hotels in Victoria there is an option for you, but there is only one, and it is a hotel in Burwood East. Nothing against Burwood East, but it certainly would not be my first choice of destination to go on holiday either by myself or with my family.

Members interjecting.

Brad ROWSWELL: Yes. There are many other places that you would go to over Burwood East. I have had some decent dumplings in Burwood East, but beyond that –

Members interjecting.

Brad ROWSWELL: The member is interjecting, and that is disorderly, Acting Speaker. I am pleased government members are listening, because there is an opportunity to change this bill. I suggest that it will not take place in the Assembly. I implore government members to change this bill when it reaches the Council. Please, please carve out a portion of this bill that means disabled Victorians are not taxed more to go on holiday either by themselves or with their families. Please do the right thing by disabled Victorians and their families. Do not disproportionately impact them or their families simply in the name of a tax grab – please, please, please. And the same should be said for victims of domestic violence.

Ashlee, who visited Parliament yesterday, said in a note to me:

Accessible short-term rental properties are essential for ensuring that people with disabilities can travel comfortably and enjoy the same opportunities as others …

Many of us rely on these specially adapted accommodations to ensure a safe and enjoyable stay when away from home and short-term rentals are much more suited to this type of traveller rather than hotels and motels.

Few hotels cater to higher physical needs, and a short-stay property gives us the flexibility to save money with self-contained cooking facilities.

The new tax poses a serious threat to the availability and affordability of accessible accommodations.

Well, to Ashlee’s comments I say: hear, hear. This side of the chamber says hear, hear. We are on your side, Ashlee. We are on the side of disabled Victorians, and we encourage, we implore and we plead with the government to move amendments in the Council so that disabled Victorians are not disproportionately impacted by their latest tax grab. We think that is a fair and eminently sensible request of the government.

We now come to the question of the constitutionality of this bill. This is something that has been raised publicly. It has been raised by me publicly for many, many months now in fact and more recently in the media as well. I hope that the government has not received advice on whether this bill is constitutional or otherwise from the same people – group, mob, outfit – that they received advice from that their electric vehicle tax was also constitutionally sound. I would like to think that the government sourced separate legal advice given the disaster that that was in the High Court for the government. In fact I raised this matter with the federal Treasurer the Honourable Dr Jim Chalmers on 11 August last year – so more than 12 months ago, in fact 13 months ago.

I wrote to the Treasurer then to raise with him a series of questions about whether the imposition of this new tax actually contravened the intergovernmental agreement on federal financial relations that was introduced following the introduction of the GST in the year 2000, because this Airbnb tax – this short-stay levy, this holiday and tourism tax: well, it looks like a bed tax, it sounds like a bed tax and it smells like a bed tax, and that bed tax was scrapped in the year 2000 as part of the intergovernmental agreement on federal financial relations and replaced by GST revenue, which the states have been benefiting from ever since. So I raised these matters with the federal Treasurer in August of last year. I said:

I write to express my concern at the Andrews’ Government proposal to break the Intergovernmental Agreement on Federal Financial Relations (IGA) with the introduction of a Holiday and Tourism Tax.

Recent reports reveal that your state Labor counterpart, Tim Pallas, is examining options to introduce a Holiday and Tourism Tax …

As you would be aware, when the Goods and Services Tax (GST) was introduced in 2000, all states and territories agreed to abolish a number of economically damaging taxes in exchange for the revenue that would flow from the GST. One of those taxes were accommodation taxes levied on the cost of temporary residential accommodation, otherwise known as ‘Bed Taxes’.

I went on to ask the Treasurer a series of questions. Frankly, I did not expect a response. I thought the federal Treasurer would just file that and I would not get a response, but to my surprise I got a response. I got a response many months later – in fact five months later, in January 2024 – from the office of the Treasurer:

Dear Mr Rowswell

Thank you for your correspondence concerning the Victorian Government’s proposed introduction of a Holiday and Tourism tax.

I am pleased to see that even the federal Treasurer is adopting my language.

The Treasurer has asked me to respond on his behalf.

The Intergovernmental Agreement on Federal Financial Relations does not constrain the states and territories from exercising their constitutional power to impose taxes.

I encourage you to engage with the Victorian Government to raise your concerns related to the proposed tax.

Which of course I have done. But what the federal Treasurer actually did was green-light the Victorian government, independent of the intergovernmental agreement that I referred to, to do whatever they like and tax whatever they like. This is a Labor state and Labor federal cabal working together against Victorians. They are ignoring that intergovernmental agreement that was agreed to some 24 years ago, and they do not give a stuff about it. What they do give a stuff about is raising more revenue to pay off their record debt, and Victorians are paying the price because of it. Of course I am happy to make all of this correspondence available to the house and to Hansard.

Further on the matter of constitutionality, this matter has been raised in a series of news articles recently, and that legal advice has also been made available to me. I quote from a recent Herald Sun article in relation to it:

A legal challenge to Victoria’s controversial new “Airbnb” tax could blow a $60m hole in the state budget and hamper the Allan government’s efforts to address the state’s housing crisis.

High level legal advice circulating among tourism operators has flagged the new tax, which is due to be debated in parliament next week, could be unconstitutional.

Senior tax lawyers have been reviewing the Short Stay Levy Bill 2024 in recent days with a potential High Court challenge understood to be in consideration.

…

Lawyers say the Airbnb tax could be unconstitutional.

This is the legal advice itself:

“By imposing a levy on the accommodation booking, as opposed to the stay, the Bill may give rise to constitutional issues, as it is not taxing property but the service of booking the property,” legal advice has warned.

“Whilst there is no issue with a State government imposing tax on property in Victoria, there may be issues with imposing tax on bookings.

“There is an argument that the Victorian Government is introducing a state services tax, applied to accommodation booking, which is essentially doubling up the existing Goods and Services Tax …

So here we are. This tax is friendless, completely and utterly friendless. It is not supported by industry, it is not supported by communities, it is not supported by the disability sector, it is not supported by domestic violence survivors and it is not supported by legal experts, who warn that this tax could be subjected to a High Court challenge. For that reason I move:

That all the words after ‘That’ be omitted and replaced with the words ‘this house refuses to read this bill a second time until the government commits to:

(a) consulting with the property sector, tourism industry, disability advocates and survivors of family violence about the proposed levy and its impact across Victoria, especially regional Victoria;

(b) making public modelling showing projected long-term rentals, the impact on Victoria’s tourism industry and legal advice about the bill’s constitutionality;

(c) working with short-stay operators to agree to a regulatory framework for the sector; and

(d) making public a whole-of-government forward plan for sustainable growth of Victoria’s long-term rental stock.’

We believe that this is an eminently sensible reasoned amendment. We are introducing it to give the government an opportunity to do the right thing by Victorians who are adversely impacted by the state Labor government’s 55th new or increased tax. This is simply a tax grab. The economic circumstance in the state is not pretty. This bill will not improve housing affordability or availability; in fact it will make things more expensive. We have got the highest debt in the nation, the highest taxes in the nation, the highest property taxes in the nation, the highest business taxes in the nation and the lowest wage growth in the nation. That is the economic circumstance that is on the head of the Allan Labor government and its members, and for the government to come into this place today and introduce its 55th new or increased tax, a tax on holidays and a tax on tourism, is the wrong thing to do.

In closing, I implore the government. I encourage them with every fibre of my being to, at the very least, in the Council make this bad bill a less bad bill by carving out exemptions for disabled Victorians and domestic violence survivors. At the very least, if you are going to use your numbers to crash through with this bill, crash through by making this bad bill a less bad bill by considering the needs of those Victorians who are vulnerable. I put on record in this house that on the basis that this reasoned amendment will not be agreed to, this side of the house opposes wholeheartedly Labor’s 55th new or increased tax.

Paul EDBROOKE (Frankston) (11:43): Before I go on to myth bust quite a bit of the shadow minister’s story I will say that I think on this side of the house, I think on that side of the house and I think on the crossbench there is one thing we hear a lot about from our constituents and that is lack of housing. There are a lot of people who are doing it tough because of the cost-of-living crisis, but we are here to talk about housing.

Members interjecting.

Paul EDBROOKE: While members would like to interject, they are really proving my point that it is waffle and hot air that does nothing. You can talk about this all you want, but at some stage a good government has to take a look at the levers and the options to make sure that people in a community can have roofs over their heads.

I am the first to say that not everyone in this chamber will agree with this bill, and we have heard some stories from those opposite. We have heard some accurate recollections, but as the Parliamentary Secretary to the Treasurer I undertook chairing the consultation on this bill. From the outset I want to pass on my heartfelt thanks for the respectful conversations we had in those consultation sessions, which were very, very well attended – the Victoria Tourism Industry Council, Expedia, the Victorian Chamber of Commerce and Industry, the Property Council of Australia, lots of local councils, lots of tourism bodies, the Great Ocean Road regional tourism group – and I made many, many good contacts throughout those conversations, even speaking about some other things and some other options that could come up. There was one thing I think we all agreed on in those conversations, and I will quote from a news.com.au article recently that says:

… Airbnb supports a tourism levy, which it said should be broad in scope, but did not specifically call for hotels to be included.

Members interjecting.

Paul EDBROOKE: This does not change the substantive subject of what I am talking about, member for Nepean.

Airbnb advocates setting the levy at three to five per cent –

so we have a difference there –

of the cost of accommodation, to be used to support social and affordable housing projects.

Airbnb also wants the state government to scrap caps on the number of nights properties can be rented for, which have been implemented …

and withdrawn in New South Wales as well. It does not matter what those opposite say. I was in the room, and while we do disagree on the way some things can be done there was I think a genuine consultative process that outlined that something needed to be done. The conversations we had, as I said, were genuine. I think people were able and felt like they were able to be fearless and have a frank discussion, and I think we did. The bill before us is part of that conversation.

We have had to, as a government, look at how we provide housing for our communities, and it is not all about how many houses we are going to build; it is about how we free up accommodation that is sitting there right now and is vacant. That is one of the biggest issues we have got. In Victoria there are around 63,000 short-stay accommodation places, with almost half of these in regional Victoria. That is why 25 per cent of the levy goes to regional Victoria. Almost 50,000 of those places are entire homes.

We could pretend that we are doing this alone in Victoria, but New South Wales are actually looking at this same type of legislation at the moment and going through the same consultative process. I disagree with the shadow minister that this legislation will not provide a single home for long-term rental – I totally disagree with that. It is a very binary statement to make. I do agree with him, though, that this will not solve the issue of housing. This bill alone will not solve the issue of housing: what a bold but very, very obvious statement. Good governments need to walk and chew gum at the same time and do different things to solve problems. One of those is investing in housing – making sure we build the property stock. Another is making sure we identify what other levers we have and what other options we can use to make sure people have a roof over their head. As I said, there is not an MP in this house that does not have people or families coming to their office asking how they can make it easier to get housing.

I take umbrage with the shadow minister’s claim that the short-stay levy of 7.5 per cent is the highest in the world. It is not. I believe from my research and also the research given to me by some of the people I consulted with that in LA county – they might call their taxes something slightly different – I think it is around 12 per cent and in the different regions in Alaska it goes from 1 per cent to 12 per cent. We are setting it at 7.5 per cent. We think that is reasonable.

This policy I think will increase the supply of long-term rentals, and as part of that housing statement last year we said we would be doing this. It has been around for a long time. I think everyone in this house supports that any funding raised from the levy will go towards building more houses, but as well as that it frees up housing stock. New South Wales, again, are going through this same issue right now. In my conversations with some of their ministers the thing that we have in common is people will have to agree to disagree on some of these issues for the sake of making sure we have housing for people in Victoria. I am not going to go into the whole rigmarole of what some people have talked about with multinationals and tax and how much of a percentage we are of the Airbnb market. I have got too much respect for the people that were involved in that consultation. They are good people. They want to run a business. At the same time we have got to run government and provide for the people of Victoria.

This bill introduces a 7.5 per cent levy on short-stay accommodation from 1 January 2025, as we announced. In Victoria there are more than 63,000 short-stay accommodation places. More than half of them are in regional Victoria, and around 48,000 of those places are actually entire homes. That is a hell of a lot of homes that are vacant most of the year. I understand that in this house there would be many, many people who utilise Airbnb, Stayz, Expedia and other platforms and would have their own holiday homes that they rent out or put on the short-stay market. I think you would be silly to think that there would not be some kind of self-serving ego involved in this, but levies do exist internationally, even at higher rates, and for this same reason. The extensive consultation in the design of the levy involved a range of stakeholders, as I have said, in the community. People had a ton of different opinions, but we all agreed that something probably needed to be done for the amenity of communities. Local councils had a very different lean and a very different contribution to what some people in the private market had as well.

The opposition were speaking a little bit about taxes there, and I just wanted to put on the record that since coming to government we have cut or abolished taxes and fees 64 times – that is 64 times since coming into government. This includes increasing the payroll tax-free threshold four times since coming into government, so fewer small to medium-sized businesses pay any payroll tax at all. In last year’s budget we committed to increasing it twice more, lifting it to $1 million so that 6000 ‍businesses ‍– about 15 per cent of all payroll taxing businesses – will no longer pay a percentage of payroll tax. We have also cut the regional payroll tax. That is just one-quarter of the metro rate, so that is now just 1.2 per cent, and that is easily the lowest in the country – and that is a fact. The priorities of those opposite lie different to us, I understand that, but we do actually have to maintain our integrity here and speak the truth.

In closing, I would say that in the consultation sessions that I chaired I appreciated the candour and I appreciated the honesty of the people involved in those and the people that represented their agencies and institutions. I learned a lot, and I think that there were some great people trying to meet in the middle on issues as well. But one thing was for certain and that was that there was no denial of the fact that Victoria does have a housing crisis and Victoria must do something about it. I think today the people who might even be watching this can appreciate that this government has had to take some action to make things happen and to do the right thing by our community, because that is why we are here: a community has come to us and said, ‘I need a roof over my head.’ We have a housing crisis. We must do things, and we must do whatever we can to actually solve those problems, not just sit there, have a big headline and say, ‘That’s the one thing we’re going to do.’ I appreciate that we are a government that can be flexible enough to make sure that we will pull every lever possible for our communities to engage them and have the best outcomes. I commend this bill to the house.

Emma KEALY (Lowan) (11:53): I rise to speak on the Short Stay Levy Bill 2024. This is a very significant bill for rural and regional Victorians. It is not just about access to holiday accommodation when you are trekking around regional Victoria – and I will give a plug to my beautiful electorate of Lowan, which has some of the best natural resources and natural environments for people to come and visit. It is also an attack on the businesses that rely on tourism. It is an attack on the jobs that are created by these small-scale tourism operators, and that is exactly how they should be considered. It is an attack on women, given women are the predominant hosts – in fact 65 per cent of Airbnb hosts are women. This is definitely a women-dominated industry because it provides the flexibility of opening and running a small business, of making sure that you are bringing additional finances into the family home or that you are ensuring you have got your own financial freedom to be able to do what you need as a single woman, as a single mum, as someone who has gone through a marriage breakdown or as someone who is looking for a financial pathway to escape a violent relationship. The other important part of short-stay accommodation in Victoria is that it is a very, very important stockpile of emergency housing for victims of family violence. I would like to go through all of those different aspects, but for that reason I oppose this bill and I support the reasoned amendment put forward by the member for Sandringham in his contribution.

Firstly, I want to speak to the impact that this short-stay tax will have on regional Victoria. As I noted, 42 per cent of Airbnb listings are hosted in rural and regional Victoria. These are in areas where it is simply not commercially viable to put a large-scale hotel, motel or caravan park, which are all businesses exempt from this tax. These are areas where there simply is not the weight of numbers to be able to provide that type of accommodation. So when you put an additional tax on a very small portion of the accommodation sector, on the holiday sector, what you are doing is putting a huge lever in place that says, ‘Don’t go here. Don’t visit here. Don’t spend your money here.’

This will affect the rural and regional Victorians who are the hosts of these businesses, but also the people who own the local coffee shops and restaurants or have little boutiques – they might have a homewares shop – all of those little quirky places we have got in our communities. I think of Dimboola’s Imaginarium, which is the most phantasmagorical place you could ever go to. I can see that there are nods around the room from people who have attended that fabulous business; it is an amazing location. But you cannot stay in one of those big commercial entities that are exempt from Labor’s short-stay tax in Dimboola. You have to stay in short-stay accommodation. It is a tax not just on the host but a tax which attacks the communities that rely on this form of tourism to be able to support the local economy.

I would like to go back to the member for Frankston’s comments, because he made some very, very interesting quotes that I think reflect very badly upon him. He did say that he would like to maintain integrity and speak the truth, yet he quoted Airbnb and said that they were supportive of this legislation. That is absolutely incorrect. The member for Frankston said that Airbnbs were supportive, and I stand by that comment. If the member for Frankston would like to rephrase his comments or withdraw them, then I encourage him to do so. I will now take a comment that is on the public record from Airbnb. It states:

Airbnb has long advocated for a small levy, paid for by the guest at the time of booking, that goes into affordable housing. We need to build more houses and this is a way to raise much-needed funds to do that … However, 7.5% is too high and will jeopardize Victoria’s ability to attract tourists to areas lacking traditional accommodation and penalize families looking to travel as cost-of-living pressures continue to bite.

Paul Edbrooke interjected.

Emma KEALY: Apparently now the member for Frankston – I will take that interjection – wholeheartedly agrees with that statement. Airbnb do not support a 7.5 per cent tax on –

Members interjecting.

Emma KEALY: I have just read the quote in, and I am getting lots of objections from members on the Labor side of this house.

Paul Edbrooke: On a point of order, Acting Speaker, the member for Lowan well knows not to misrepresent other members of the house.

The ACTING SPEAKER (Paul Hamer): It is a point of debate.

Emma KEALY: While maintaining integrity and speaking the truth, I would reflect on what the member for Frankston has said and is trying now to hide and the comments by Airbnb that show that they are absolutely not in support of this bill. Any words that are in that line of debate today are absolutely misleading the Parliament of Victoria.

I would also like to speak directly to some of the issues that this tax will have an impact on in my community. We have a significant shortage of emergency housing for family violence victims. We simply have nothing available, and so often it is victims of family violence that have to move hundreds of kilometres away with their kids, often with no notice to their children. To put them in a strange environment with no supports around them is not best practice. It is not what the Royal Commission into Family Violence recommended, and it is not what Victoria should be doing.

I spoke to one local host of an Airbnb property in Horsham just this past week. They have somebody who is currently staying in their accommodation for two weeks. They have not booked it in their own name; it was booked by Victoria Police, and that is simply because there is no emergency accommodation available for family violence victim-survivors in the region. There is nothing at all. If short-stay taxes are put in place, it will shrink the options for family violence victims to find shelter. It will force them to stay with their perpetrators for longer or will render them homeless. That is not an outcome that any member of Parliament should be supporting in this day and age when we know family violence is such a critical issue in our communities.

I would also like to get on the record some of the views of the regional tourism boards. Again, the member for Frankston raised some of the regional tourism boards that he had met with. I have got feedback from Grampians Tourism. This is an organisation that have done an amazing job, and they now are representing not just the Grampians but also the Wimmera–Mallee. Their view was not supportive of Labor’s holiday tax. I will read it into Hansard:

In summary, this new policy will only serve to make Victoria a less attractive and more expensive destination ‍– all of this occurring when cost of living increases are beginning to impact on the rate of visitor spend, particularly in regional Victoria and at a time when we see our own occupancy levels down 30% and YoY visitor spend down 70%.

And it will be regional Victoria that will be hit hardest by this measure, given the limited options of traditional commercial accommodation in our region. If customers do not want to pay the 7.5%, metro Melbourne has a plethora of other options that consumers can consider; but in regional Victoria, those same options are not necessarily on offer, particularly in places like the Grampians & Wimmera Mallee as we rely heavily on short-stay accommodation as a critical component of our accommodation supply.

…

It is my understanding that none of this money will flow back into tourism …

This is a very bad move by the Labor government. For our region, it is not just metro Melbourne that we are competing with, who have those large-scale commercial holiday providers, it is also South Australia. You can simply nip over the border for your local holiday and know that you are going to pay at least 7.5 per cent less than if you had stayed on this side of the border.

This is a terrible, terrible tax that Labor is putting on Victorian people. But of course it is a tax that we know Labor will mismanage, because Labor cannot manage money and they cannot manage projects and every single time Victorians are paying the price. In this instance it is rural and regional Victorians that will pay the price, and not just the hosts of short-stay accommodation. It is our local communities and businesses that rely on that tourism stream and visitors to our region. It is people who are looking at escaping family violence situations and having a safe roof over their head. This is an attack on women in small business, who are the majority of hosts of Airbnbs. I condemn the government, and I support the reasoned amendment.

Daniela DE MARTINO (Monbulk) (12:03): I rise with pleasure to speak on the Short Stay Levy Bill 2024. This bill, once passed, will create a new act, and it will amend the Owners Corporations Act ‍2006 and the Taxation Administration Act 1997. I have quite a bit to say about this, but before I begin, I would like to touch on some contributions which have occurred in the chamber over the course of the past 20 or so minutes. I would like to begin by echoing the member for Frankston, who said that we currently have a housing crisis and we need to pull all the levers as a government. We can walk and chew gum at the same time. There is no one simple solution to the situation that exists, and therefore we must pull a whole range of different levers to address this matter, which is serious. It affects the constituents across all of our electorates. It is incredibly important that we as a government are doing something in this space, and this is one piece of the puzzle. This is one way to try and address the matter of housing and the lack thereof for people, especially when it comes to rentals.

I also would like to touch upon his contribution when he was discussing his consultation with Airbnb. It was incredibly difficult to hear the contribution given the very loud interjections, which barely allowed the member for Frankston to finish his first sentence. I could hardly hear it, and I have a speaker right here next to my right ear. I would like to just make the point that the member for Frankston was not actually talking about Airbnb’s comments specifically on this bill, he was talking about his consultation with them. I do not believe the members opposite who were interjecting at the time were in the same room as them, but the member for Frankston was, and I am sure that within the next few hours, when Hansard becomes available for all of us, the facts of what was said on the record will bear themselves out.

There are a couple of other matters I would like to talk about. I would like to address the member for Lowan’s very real concerns. I understand the concerns and I would like to assuage her concerns about crisis accommodation, because they are exempt from this levy. So I will read through the exemptions of this levy. It is incredibly important that this is on the record. The levy will not apply to –

Members interjecting.

Daniela DE MARTINO: Maybe if those opposite listened they would actually hear what the levy will not apply to. It will not apply to rooming houses, retirement villages, residential care facilities, supported residential facilities and temporary crisis accommodation. It will not apply to temporary crisis accommodation, and that is incredibly important. It is important to me as well. It is important to all of us here. I am offering this information here. I have had it confirmed: it will not apply to temporary crisis accommodation.

I will now delve a bit deeper into this. It is a 7.5 per cent levy on short-stay accommodation which commences on 1 January next year. It has been a year since we announced the housing statement, and this policy is aiming to encourage property owners to transition short-term rentals into longer term rental opportunities.

In the regions there is an issue. I know there is an issue for me in outer parts of my electorate where businesses are struggling with workforce to try and attract people because they cannot stay there. There is nowhere for them to rent long term. This is a problem, but there is a slew of Airbnbs. So it is actually having a deleterious impact on businesses as well. Those opposite like to champion themselves as being in the corner of business. Well, I know businesses who have said, ‘We can’t find accommodation for our workers.’ It is also important that that is part of the exemption. Worker accommodation will be exempt from this levy as well. This is sensible. It is a sensible levy, and it takes into account real-life situations where we do require some short-term accommodation and they are therefore exempt. We deal with nuance on this side of the chamber, not merely black-and-white terms on everything, and that requires sophistication and a little bit of panache as well, which I think we definitely have.

It is an important levy, and there is a global trend of this. Look at most countries in the world, and if they have not done it already, they are in the process of doing so. I have to say there is a need to disincentivise short-term rentals by making them less financially appealing compared to long-term leases. I know somebody who actually went and rented places to live in and then let them out as Airbnbs. That became her full-time occupation. People were not able to live in those. Families were not able to –

Emma Kealy: How dare a woman be an entrepreneur.

Daniela DE MARTINO: I take up that interjection from the member for Lowan, and I do not actually think it matters. I was a small business owner, and I would like to see the hands raised in the chamber of how many of those opposite were. I employed 30 people at one time. I had two businesses running, and when they were running in parallel I employed about 45 people at the one time. I can speak to running a business; I can speak to a number of issues. And guess what happens when you run a business and the situation changes around you? You pivot, you adapt and you improve.

When you are in business you have to adjust. I will also say that when you are in business sometimes it can be challenging. But when it comes to a 7.5 per cent levy on an average $200-per-night stay – I can do the maths really quickly – that barely has an impact on the price of the stay. If I am able to afford to pay $200, I can pay the 7.5 per cent more for that evening.

I will say – I am talking about $210 a night – the levy is being collected by Airbnb. When I book my accommodation on Airbnb, everywhere they charge a cleaning fee; there are all these fees added on, depending on where you are. There is a total amount. The total amount is the amount I know I have to pay. If I am overseas in Europe, there are tourist taxes there. This is different to what we are doing. The tourist tax applies to every form of accommodation that you stay in. This Airbnb levy only applies to short-term rentals, but there are many exemptions, which I have read through.

I do have to say the ‘why’ about this. The why is because we need to free up some of these short-term rentals, which have exploded over time and which have diminished the number of accommodations available for people – for families, for single parents, for women over 55 who are struggling. There are countless stories. You do not need to delve far to hear the stories of how people can no longer live where they work because they have lived in tourist towns where now that market has been soaked up by Airbnbs. The head of a hospital, one of the nurses in charge, up on the New South Wales coast ended up living in a tent because the majority of the properties in her tourist town, where she had lived for years and years, were converted to Airbnb short-term stays because they were more financially profitable. She had to live in a tent – a full-time, registered nurse, and that was her accommodation choice.

I know that is not an example I am giving of here in Victoria, but it was one of the first I read that stuck with me. That is why this is important – because not only will it help with that, it will also add a considerable amount of money to Homes Victoria. We have important work to do. This is expected to collect about $60 million, and that money is going to go into Homes Victoria. That is going to assist them with their important work as we seek to create more homes for people who deserve to live with dignity and with surety and to not always worry that they are going to have to leave in 12 months time or to worry that they will not find the next place to live in.

It is incumbent upon all of us to think about broader society and what is in the best interests of all, not the few. And it is disappointing that those opposite can take such a black-and-white approach to something – but then again, it is not surprising. I commend this bill to the house wholeheartedly.

Sam GROTH (Nepean) (12:13): I am so glad I get to follow the contribution from the member for Monbulk on what is the government’s holiday and tourism tax that they are introducing, their 55th new or increased tax since they came to government. Before I get to the member for Monbulk’s contribution, I just want to touch on something that the member for Frankston said. He said that a good government has to use the levers to take action. Now, just for the member for Frankston’s information, back in 2018 industry actually put a paper to the government, the government that was in power at the time, saying to them that they needed some regulation within the short-stay sector. And do you know what the government came back and said to industry? ‘The market will deal with it itself.’ Six years ago the industry actually recognised that there was going to be an issue with this, and those on the other side rejected that claim. And so what they do is they wait until there is a housing crisis that has been created on their watch – on their watch over the last 10 years. And what they do is what they always do; there is not a single original thought from a single member on the other side of the chamber. They pull the lever that says, ‘Let’s tax Victorians once again, and this time we’re going to make it a tax on those that decide to take a holiday in regional Victoria.’

Now, I am glad the Minister for Tourism, Sport and Major Events is on the other side of the table here, and I do hope he is going to make a contribution on this bill when it comes to the impacts on the tourism sector. We saw a release put out by the Victoria Tourism Industry Council (VTIC) just two days ago on the imposition of this tax. We know from data collected from those who either own Airbnb properties or stay in Airbnb properties that this will do absolutely nothing to help the long-term rental market and it will do absolutely nothing to help those tourism businesses, those hospitality operators and those who operate tourism attractions who are already struggling.

People in Victoria are absolutely battling with a cost-of-living crisis. When people see their mortgages go up, they see their taxes go up, they see their gas bills go up and they see their electricity prices go up, do you know what they do? Mums and dads at home have to run a budget. When they get their weekly pay cheque and they have a couple of kids they run a budget. They know how much they are spending each week. They save and they put that money away and they decide to go on holidays, and this is what they have said. Fifty-one per cent of respondents who use short-stay accommodation when they go out to the regions have said that if this tax is imposed, they will reduce how often they travel and how much they spend. Fifty-one per cent, so one in every two, of users of short-stay accommodation have said they will travel less or they will reduce their spend in those areas that are already struggling. Fifty-five per cent have said they would shorten the length of their stay.

Regional Victoria is already battling to get people back into the regions following COVID. This 7.5 ‍per cent tax will add $156 to the average short-stay. That is dinners in pubs. That is coffees and breakfasts in restaurants. You are forgetting that it is not just the people who travel. The money they spend directly impacts tourism businesses in the regions if people are not coming in and spending. The member for Monbulk said, ‘I’ve employed people in business. We can’t employ staff.’ If people are not coming into your business, you will not have a business to run. You need people coming in and spending to keep your business afloat.

A member interjected.

Sam GROTH: They will not. They are saying they will not come. You have absolutely nothing. There has been no modelling done. I do pick up from the minister for tourism a comment that he made that was played on Channel 9 news last night where he said:

7.5 per cent is not the make-or-break point, I don’t think.

It is either the make-or-break point or it is not, because you have the data, but he said, ‘I don’t think.’ Has there been any consultation done?

Steve Dimopoulos interjected.

Sam GROTH: You said, ‘I don’t think.’ Have you spoken to anybody? Has the minister spoken to anybody?

Members interjecting.

Sam GROTH: He has spoken to VTIC; I will take that interjection. VTIC is in no way supportive of this.

I can say that the short-term accommodation sector and all of those stakeholders involved absolutely would love to see some regulation within this sector. I think we can all agree that some regulation in this sector would go a long way to improving some of the stays that people have in regional Victoria. One in seven businesses in Victoria operate in the tourism sector.

There are over 250,000 people employed in our visitor economy, and 118,000 of those are in regional Victoria. We want to talk about those people that this is going to affect. It is going to affect those mums and dads and families. Eighty per cent of travellers to regional Victoria are Victorians. They are people travelling within our own state, and they are the people who are going to be paying an extra cost on everything they do every time they go to stay in regional Victoria in short-stay accommodation. They are the ones that are going to be paying this. This government has nothing else in its powers and no original thoughts on how to turn this state around other than to pull another lever on tax, because of the financial mismanagement that they have shown over the last 10 years. Jobs are going to be affected by this. When you talk about who is going to pay it, it is going to be Victorians. Victorians are going to pay it – 7.5 per cent.

We can question the constitutionality of the tax and all of those things that we have heard from the member for Sandringham, the Shadow Treasurer, and I fully support his reasoned amendment and our opposition to the bill. The member for Monbulk wanted to speak about regional jobs – jobs for those people that are going to be affected. What about when you start to pull the minimal number of properties? I think, based on those surveyed who have short-stays, between 1 and 6 per cent may think about moving their properties to the long-term rental market. That is not even mentioning when we questioned the government in our bill briefing.

They have absolutely zero modelling when it comes to how many properties would actually be going back to the long-term rental market. They could not provide a number, and they would not provide any of the modelling. But how many properties would go back to the long-term rental market from the short-stay market by the imposition of this tax? It is purely a tax grab. If there are places that go back, what happens to the jobs of the people in regional Victoria or who work in short-stay accommodation who do the laundry for the properties, who clean the properties, who do the garden maintenance on the properties, who clean the pools? We are talking about small business owners who work directly with the short-stay sector to provide services. They employ people; these people employ people. The other side say they care about jobs. What about the jobs of all those people that may be affected by any imposition that this pushes onto the sector?

This government has no regard for the tourism sector in this state. Our visitor numbers are stagnating. They are not catching up. We are recovering slower than every other mainland state in Australia. We are behind New South Wales. We are behind Queensland. Queensland has gone and put the same amount of money into destination marketing – there is $17.5 million for destination marketing, which actually directly provides the opportunity for regional Victorian businesses to advertise themselves both here in Victoria, domestically and internationally; they have absolutely trashed that budget and sucked so much money out of it – in a single campaign over the last three months as this government is due to spend over the next three years. Tell me how that is giving any support to those small business operators in the tourism sector.

I also want to ask, when you talk about our relationship with other states: what about our border communities? When people have the opportunity to go up to Albury–Wodonga, to Echuca–Moama and to the New South Wales–South Australian border, where do you think people are going to stay? Are they going to stay in Victoria, where it costs you an extra 7.5 per cent on your total booking, not just on the night’s accommodation but on the booking fee, on the cleaning fee, or are they going to take a 5-minute drive across the river and go and stay in New South Wales and make direct investment into the New South Wales visitor economy? Why would anybody in their right mind stay on the side of the border that is going to charge you an extra 7.5 per cent tax?

No-one on that side of the chamber has a single original thought other than the imposition of another tax when it comes to the tourism sector. It is going to affect our hospitality venues, our cafes, our restaurants, our pubs and our tourism attractions. It is going to affect those people that it employs. Every single one of you on the other side: when people from your electorates go and travel out to the regions, they are the ones that are going to be paying the price. They are the ones that are going to be paying the price for 10 years of absolute incompetence from this government, and now you are coming after those people who want to save their money and go out and travel to regional Victoria.

Josh BULL (Sunbury) (12:23): I am pleased to have the opportunity to contribute to debate on the Short Stay Levy Bill 2024. It is always good to be reminded of original thoughts and original ideas from a team who for four miserable, lazy years did not manage to open an envelope; they were lucky to open a sauce bottle on that side of the house. We on this side of the house are of course committed to ensuring that we are working for and with all Victorians and making sure that we are providing a range of options and opportunities for housing in this state. We know that this piece of legislation, the Short Stay Levy Bill, introduces a 7.5 per cent levy on short-stay accommodation from 1 January 2025, announced in what was the housing statement.

I do want to go into quite a bit of what is contained in the housing statement, obviously that being the genesis of the legislation that is before the house this afternoon. We know of course that short-stay rentals have become a popular feature of the visitor economy, and they have in many instances resulted in the reduction of the availability of properties to be used for long-term accommodation.

This piece of legislation, as do so many of the initiatives, programs and projects that we bring to the chamber and across the government, brings a real solution to the challenges that we face, not running in here and on one hand promising all sorts of things, voting one way and then going out to the community and saying another, but delivering important, tangible solutions to the challenges that we face. Bringing in a suite of reforms to create more homes, more opportunities and more options for those that are experiencing vulnerabilities in their lives, while also creating a range of options as people move through various stages in their lives, is important and is something that the government is committed to.

We are working with the sector, partnering with industry and making sure that we are, as has been mentioned by my good friends the member for Frankston and the member for Monbulk, using those levers and providing a range of opportunities to increase supply and ensure that we are doing those things in a practical, tangible and sensible way. Of course we know there is an alternative approach. That is to at every opportunity undermine good policy, at every opportunity run scare campaigns and at every opportunity go out into the community and promise things that you simply cannot deliver.

I did reference earlier in my contribution the housing statement, and I want to speak about a number of initiatives that are contained within that. One of the recommendations that was provided within the housing statement was the legislation that is before the house today. We know that the more than $5.3 billion in the Big Housing Build, delivering more than 1200 social and affordable homes across metropolitan and regional Victoria, is critically important. More than 820 construction sites across the state, more than 10,000 jobs a year, 7600 homes in planning and construction, 2800 households – making sure that we are providing those options and that increase is incredibly important.

We know and understand that that diversity, as I mentioned earlier, as people move through different stages of their lives and experience vulnerability and need support is something that this government is committed to. Making sure that we are providing a range of options is something that we know and understand is incredibly important, whether it is in transport, whether it is in health or whether it is in education. Providing for those homes and those opportunities and, as I am sure all members of the house do, moving around local communities and speaking to people about housing is an incredibly important role and responsibility. But what is more important than that is bringing solutions to the table. We have outlined within the housing statement a range of initiatives both in terms of clearing the backlog and making big decisions faster. We are increasing housing choice in activity centres and making it easier to build a second, smaller home with faster permits and planning certainty. That large suite of reforms to the red tape commissioner – converting commercial buildings to residential, providing quicker connections to utilities like water and more resources to support faster and fairer planning systems – is outlined within the housing statement. It is the genesis of the legislation before the house today.

We know and understand that there is always more work to be done, but what this piece of legislation does is provide those necessary funds to support those that are experiencing some vulnerability but also provide more supply and more stock to market, making sure that those houses are in regional Victoria, in the suburbs and right here in the heart of the CBD. We are a team that is committed to working with communities right across the state, with local government and with industry to ensure that we are doing every single thing that we can to get those options and safe, affordable premises to as many Victorians as possible.

On one hand, what we see from those opposite is a constant push, if you like, a constant call for more to be done within this space. But when you dive down into the detail, when you have a look at the housing statement and when you have a look at all of those reforms that I have just gone through and the many, many more that are contained in the very comprehensive statement – this goes to planning, supply, capital, funding and working with other partners within industry and across government to make sure that those options and opportunities are there – this is something that we are committed to.

What we know through both growth and our investment in transport and planning is that not only is ensuring that the home and the opportunity that is provided fundamentally important, but it is having the ability to move on and move around the community – those transport networks and the new connections that are provided. This was also alluded to quite comprehensively in the statement, I would say at around part 2 or 3, which looks at what an investment is in a public transport network. The Metro Tunnel, which we have spoken about at length, and a whole range of investments that go to getting Victorians to where they need to go safer and sooner are things that are incredibly important.

I do just in the last couple of minutes want to talk about some of those reforms that are also contained within the statement which go to the diversity, the new mix of housing options. The social and affordable element I know is something that is incredibly important to my local community, and I do just want to take the opportunity to thank all of those that work in the sector – all of those staff who do a wonderful job in supporting those who are working towards securing a home – and those who are experiencing new challenges and vulnerabilities as they move through our community.

This forms what is a very comprehensive package – the $5.3 billion investment, the planning reforms, the reduction in red tape, the streamlining of a process. What we have seen certainly through the Minister for Housing and the Minister for Planning and others is of course a targeted approach to get on and deliver more stock to market so that people have a real opportunity, a practical opportunity to get a safe and affordable roof over their head to support their family and so that we can make sure we are listening to and working with communities at each and every opportunity. That is why this bill enables a further the mechanism for supply. We know and understand that these are the decisions that have to be made and the decisions have been made in a rightful and respectful way, and for those reasons I commend the bill to the house.

Cindy McLEISH (Eildon) (12:33): I am pleased to be able to rise to make a contribution on the Short Stay Levy Bill 2024. The reason I am pleased to do it is because this is another tax and another demonstration of the Labor government’s inability to manage money and manage their budget. This is the 55th new or increased tax from a government that said there will be none. Now we have got another levy, a 7.5 per cent levy on all non-commercial Victorian short-stay accommodation from 1 ‍January 2025. It is also going to expand the powers of owners corporations and green-light councils to regulate and tax the short-stay sector.

The lead speaker, the Shadow Treasurer, has put forward a reasoned amendment because there has been, again, inadequate consultation. Again we have not seen any of the modelling and projections that the government is relying on, and we would like to see them work a little bit more closely with the short-stay operators. I fully endorse the reasoned amendment put forward by the Shadow Treasurer.

There has also been a question about the legality here: is this constitutional? We know that the government last year were forced to scrap their tax on zero- and low-emission vehicles because the High Court made a ruling to say it was unlawful, saying only the federal government had the power to establish such an excise. The government just say, ‘No, this is constitutional,’ but they have not given us any advice. I would like to actually see the advice, because I am not really keen to just trust their word without it being backed up.

The context around this bill is an enormous government debt heading to $188 billion. That is unheard of. That is worse than the Cain–Kirner days. We have budget black holes opening up already – and potholes opening up already too, which seemed to get missed in the budget. We have got a housing crisis. We have got a housing crisis on many levels. We do not have enough accommodation. We do not have enough social housing. We do not have enough accommodation for people who are coming to this country to live. People who are moving to country towns cannot find accommodation as it is. And somehow the government thinks that this tax is going to help the housing crisis. When I listen to the government members as they make their contributions, they are all using the word ‘levers’, so I figure that is in the speaking notes that have been prepared for them, because I do not really hear them talking about economic levers ordinarily. Apparently it is going to collect $60 million per annum, but we will wait to see how that will go.

The Airbnb listings and short-stay accommodation listings that fall under this category – the government I think are reporting about 50,000, and maybe half of those are in country Victoria. I would like to think that half of the money is going to come back to country Victoria. It is not exactly huge money in terms of government spend. It is only millions, not billions, we are talking about. If 25 ‍per cent goes back to regional Victoria, well, that is $15 million, and that is not really going to go terribly far.

We know also that the Treasurer is on a collision course with other cabinet colleagues, trying to rein in their spending because they do not know how to do it. The Treasurer I think is beginning to understand that really some more work needs to be done to balance the books and manage the books. If we have got this short-stay accommodation levy, who does it hit and what does it really mean? Who is it that uses these properties? I have heard that many people actually use these properties, not just holiday-makers. We have family and domestic violence victims using these properties as a means of emergency housing. If you have a look at the government’s detail in the budget about how long people who flee domestic violence are waiting for properties, it is two years. We have got an issue here: the government do not understand the difference between their agenda of trying to open up properties back to the longer term rental market and exemption. We are not talking about exemption. We are talking about properties coming back to the market – to the rental market or even to be sold. We have got police who are contacting and booking these properties because it is the only emergency accommodation available. It does not matter whether they are exempt or not, these properties are being used for specific purposes, and they are not going to be returned to longer term accommodation.

Also when we look at Airbnb properties, whether they have been there for victims of family violence or not, this is a bit of a tax on women, because 62 per cent or 65 per cent I think of hosts are women, and a lot of the people that are involved in the turnaround and cleaning between one tenant or holiday-maker or person who is using it on a short-term basis and another are usually woman.

We have people who are using these properties who are workers coming for short-term work on different projects. You see in country areas if they are building a particular bridge or doing a major road build – which has not happened for donkeys in my electorate – that the workers will find somewhere to stay because they need to have somewhere close. We had a big project in the Upper Yarra dam where they pretty well rebuilt the wall, which was an enormous project over a couple of years, and they would have been looking for this type of accommodation.

I have had a lot of feedback, because the government thinks that these properties are all going to go into the longer term rental market. Brian from the Upper Yarra tells me that he and his wife have three self-contained units that they have been running for 16 years. He said:

Our permit to operate from the Shire of Yarra Ranges only allows us to have guests for a maximum of 14 ‍nights …

They are not allowed to have long-stay or permanent tenants, so these are properties that are not going to be returned to the longer term rental market. He is very concerned about this 7.5 per cent tax that will be collected.

Tony from Marysville has been operating properties for quite some time – cottages. He is talking about the same issue as Brian and says:

I can’t rent my cottages out permanently because my business permit doesn’t allow it …

This is a Murrindindi situation and a Yarra Ranges situation. It is the same. They have permits to operate which give particular conditions.

Some people may know Woods Point. Woods Point is quite remote. It is a very small community in my electorate. It is way beyond Mansfield, probably an hour and a half on a dirt road. There are only 27 people who live in Woods Point. There are not a lot of work opportunities, but there is a pub and there is a shop and there is a police station, because it is a very popular destination for people who want to do activities in the great outdoors. A lot of hunters, fishers and shooters go there. This is from Amy:

We purchased this house to run an Airbnb to support my family and help us to be able to afford to live in this remote town.

They also wanted to support tourism in Woods Point and to keep the other jobs. They wanted the hotel to stay in business. They wanted the shop to stay in business. This tax is going to put a strain on her mentally and financially. She really wants the government to rethink this tax, because it is going to be mums and dads who are hit with it if it is for the holiday accommodation.

I do know that not everyone is a fan of Airbnb. I, like many others, have had a number of challenges that have been brought to me. A couple of them are from Healesville. We have got a particular street, Newgrove Road, that has quite a lot of properties. Over the years there have been party houses that have caused a lot of problems with the number of people, the noise, the parties at all hours of the night and the parking issues. There is a lot of stress. I have heard of people urinating in driveways where there are little kids’ bikes and things like that. People who are going to those party houses do not respect them. I know council have a greater role to play, and I know council have tried to work to resolve these sorts of issues. These are the sorts of regulations that really could be improved to make it a better experience for everyone, because Airbnb is certainly here to stay.

This tax really is tackling the tourism industry. It is not tackling it – it is putting a big dent in it. The Victoria Tourism Industry Council are really disappointed with it. I am pleased to see that the Minister for Tourism, Sport and Major Events is in the chamber listening to our contributions, but I understand that he is declining to speak on this bill. I know that the tourism industry would be dying to hear what it is that he has got to say. They think that this is a very negative tax on their industry, which is really struggling. We have had tourism way down in so many areas, and this is going to make it worse.

Nathan LAMBERT (Preston) (12:43): I rise to also support the Short Stay Levy Bill 2024. There is a lot to say about this important reform from the Treasurer, but I will try and restrict myself mainly to remarks which reflect the perspective of those in Reservoir and Preston. The bill obviously raises revenue to support social housing, which is very welcome, but of course its key effect is also to increase supply and thus ease affordability pressures. Other members have sort of spoken about the regional effects, but if we just think of Melbourne, it certainly does that in quite a geographically specific way. There are obviously lots of short-stays in the CBD, and there are certainly hundreds in places like Collingwood and Fitzroy. As you come out through the northern suburbs, it is true that the amount of Airbnbs and short-stay accommodation reduces. I think in Reservoir there are about 25 or so.

Before I get to those geographic specifics I do just want to talk about housing affordability generally. It is a very significant issue in the community. There are some researchers. Ben Phillips at the Australian National University often points out that if you look at mortgage payments and rents as a percentage of income they have gone up but not dramatically over the last 30 years. But I think it is very important to remember that things have changed a lot. Most obviously interest rates are now lower than they were for those who remember the early 1990s, and therefore as a result asset prices and housing prices are a long way up. Certainly when we talk to people in Preston and Reservoir about that there are three particular aspects that concern them.

The first is the impact on deposits. It is much, much harder now to save up the money for a deposit than it was 30 years ago, and I think there are some questions there for our federal colleagues, who are responsible for prudential matters, about whether there is further work that can be done in terms of some sort of general insurance scheme or a way to alleviate that issue. But it certainly is an issue in our community.

There is also the very important issue of providing security for lower income renters, and of course this Allan Labor government has taken big steps forward in that respect. Just last sitting week we were talking about the Minister for Consumer Affairs’ bill that provides support to those in residential parks, which I know the member for Laverton helped lead. And also of course increasing rent assistance is really important – I think underrated sometimes – and one of the most important things you can do for housing affordability, and we commend the federal Labor government, which has just done that.

Outside of those specific issues that people often raise there is of course a general issue with affordability. The member for Frankston I thought spoke eloquently about that. But I would also like to make a point that I know that they make at the Grattan Institute, which is that anything we can do to reduce the cost of housing has a really profound effect because housing is such a large part of most people’s budgets. And of course we are living through an era where those budgets are under considerable financial pressure.

A key part of reducing costs is increasing supply. We know that if you restrict the provision of a good, its price goes up. If there is a cyclone in Far North Queensland, we all pay more for bananas, and if you restrict the ability to build houses, they will be more expensive. There are perhaps two important qualifications to add to that. The first is that it is particularly consequential if you restrict housing in areas where there is a very high demand. There was a slightly infamous case last year where I think people wanted to heritage protect the former car park of the Royal Women’s Hospital, which people at Melbourne University or in Carlton might know well. We just know that the effect of that sort of thing would be very profound if the intention was to prevent any housing being built there, on a site that we know would be taken up by literally hundreds of people if it could be.

That is less true if you go back to, say, Ninda, which is the very small farming community where I started out. Because of rising agricultural productivity there is no longer a large demand for houses in Ninda, and you could change zoning all day long in Ninda and I do not think people would build new houses there. If anyone is interested, you can still rent our old farmhouse for about $50 a week. But I do make the point that there is a big difference between what might happen in Carlton and Ninda.

I will make a second point briefly that this government is by no means saying that planning is not important or planning does not deliver real benefits for the community. Most obviously, property developers do not pay the full costs of the impositions they put on the community in terms of extra service provision. They certainly do not pay those costs directly – the government does – but they often do not even pay them indirectly through lower prices, because it is very hard for people buying a new property to fully understand the effects of possible future restrictions on service provision. That is especially important with transport infrastructure. Transport infrastructure is very expensive to retrofit, as we know. We would all love it if developers built all of their homes close to mass transit hubs with lots of spare capacity, but in the absence of planning laws, we know they will not do that, and there are examples all around Melbourne. Certainly if you look at the extensive townhouse development that has occurred in eastern Reservoir, most of that development is more than 1 kilometre away from any of our train stations. Congestion is becoming a real challenge at Boldrewood and Plenty, at Broadway and High and at Hickford and Cheddar, and that cost is being borne by our residents, not by the developers that built and sold the townhouses.

I just make this point because sometimes the more radical activist groups, YIMBY Melbourne – I have a lot of respect for them, but they really push for liberalisation of planning everywhere and equally. I make the point that the benefits, as I think we all know, are greatest in the expensive, inner-city suburbs, where you can often go from currently single-storey buildings to six or eight or 10 storeys and where they are already very well served by transport options. As you move away from the CBD and you come north through the northern suburbs, that balance does change a little. I was speaking to a developer who made the point to me that putting a lift into a building is expensive, but that lift costs the same amount whether you are putting it into a building in East Melbourne or you are putting it into a building in Berriwillock. In East Melbourne you can sell the apartments for a lot of money and recoup the cost of your lift. In a small country town you do not. And if you come to somewhere like Reservoir, at the moment it is probably about 50–50.

I was talking to one of our local residents, Angela Villella, the other day about the fact that it is still relatively hard to find an apartment in Reservoir if you want to buy one, not because of planning restrictions but just because it is still not quite economically feasible really to build that form of housing; it just does not quite stack up economically. I say all that because I think it is very important to understand that as our important reforms which increase supply play out, we do expect that the greatest uplift will occur closer to the city, and that will then allow all the rest of us to perhaps live a little closer in. That is certainly how residents in Preston and Reservoir see it. They understand the benefits of living in places like Collingwood or Fitzroy. Some of us have lived there previously. You can walk to the MCG. You can walk to world-class galleries. You can go to Gertrude Street Yoga and then to the Carlton Gardens. You are within walking distance of literally thousands of varied workplaces, including of course the workplace that all of us stand in today. It is great if you can walk to all those things. For most of us, me included, you cannot. You have to get on a train or your bike or your car and drive in, as I have done this morning. But that is totally fine, and people in Preston and Reservoir are totally fine with that. There are many huge benefits to living where we are, but the thing we would say is it is most helpful if that extra density goes in close to all those things I have just mentioned, because that lets those new residents walk to those things and means the rest of us do not face any additional challenges or competition as we catch the train or drive our cars in to access them ourselves. For that reason I think residents in Preston and Reservoir strongly support this bill, and that comes back to where I started.

It is of course a bill that will particularly increase supply in those suburbs I talked about at the start where there are a lot of Airbnbs. That will be great for increasing supply there, reducing housing pressure there, and as I just set out, it will stop there being any extra pressure on those transport links that then take you further north through the northern suburbs to Preston and Reservoir and indeed to Thomastown and Epping and the other great suburbs that are represented by the member for Thomastown. That is I think the general perspective of support that we bring to this bill, and certainly we would oppose the reasoned amendment. As is sometimes the case with the member for Sandringham’s reasoned amendments, it is the kind of reasoned amendment you have when you do not have a reasoned amendment. It calls for further consultation and data and so forth, but I think it did not really address the substantial impacts and intentions of this bill.

Briefly, in the time I have got left, I will note that we do have some further planning exercises going on in Preston Central in particular as part of our housing statement. We have there a community reference group who are doing some very important work there. At another opportunity I will pass on their feedback on issues like social housing and the priority waitlist, which are very important to them, and issues like tree cover, which is important. In many respects the same issues that I have just set out here today are important, and they also want to see our new housing going in as close as possible to mass transit hubs in order to ensure that people can walk to the train station or they can jump on a bike path. It does not unnecessarily add to that congestion, as I set out in my earlier remarks.

With that, I commend the bill to the house, as I said, on behalf of that perspective of Preston and Reservoir. I oppose the reasoned amendment, and I wish the bill a speedy passage.

Tim BULL (Gippsland East) (12:53): It is a pleasure to rise and make a contribution on the Short Stay Levy Bill 2024. We have got a scenario here where we have a Treasurer looking at every possible area he can get his hands on to pay for this state’s increasing debt, which is forecast to reach $186 billion – $26 million a day. It is just very, very difficult to even get your head around that. I do support the reasoned amendment, and I take up the member for Preston, who said it was a reasoned amendment when you do not really have a reasoned amendment. Member for Preston, we are advocating for the disability sector to get a better deal in this, which is part of that reasoned amendment ‍– a sector that was not consulted with or catered for. I certainly do not agree with those comments that you made. I think it is actually a very, very important issue that this government needs to have a close look at and address between houses.

I will just make a few comments that I think are rather pertinent, and the first one relates to my own electorate of Gippsland East. I say this with the Minister for Tourism, Sport and Major Events at the table. I just want to talk about the impacts or potential impacts this levy or this tax would have on my electorate. It is a tax that will not solve the problem, because almost all short-stay accommodation owners who have been surveyed have said they are simply going to put up their rates and that they are not going to return these homes to the rental market. They will simply pass on the costs.

My area of Gippsland East has not had a great time if we look back over the relatively short history of fires in 2019–20 and then straight into COVID. Here we are, nearly five years on this summer, and we still do not have our tourism infrastructure rebuilt. I am not sure what the Minister for Tourism, Sport and Major Events has to say about that. We have had our timber industry removed, and that has resulted in a lot of workers moving interstate to New South Wales, Queensland and the Northern Territory, out of our towns along the eastern seaboard there. Then last week the minister announced that we are losing – when we are meant to be supporting these timber communities – departmental jobs and Forest Fire Management Victoria jobs out of towns.

Steve Dimopoulos interjected.

Tim BULL: Well, Minister, the staff members who have been on the phone to me this –

Steve Dimopoulos interjected.

Tim BULL: No, no, I am talking to the people who have been told – seven jobs down to three in Swifts Creek.

Steve Dimopoulos interjected.

Tim BULL: Two jobs going out of Orbost is not rubbish at all. This is coming from your people working in your departments. And now what are we doing? We are introducing this short-stay tax. And what will that do? We have a lot of people come out of the metropolitan area to holiday in East Gippsland at places like Lakes Entrance, Paynesville, Marlo and the like and Mallacoota right up on the border, and now we are introducing a tax that does not exist over the border in towns like Eden, Merimbula and Bermagui. It will become more attractive for holiday-makers that are heading east to just stay in the car. If you are going to Mallacoota, why not stay in the car for an extra 45 minutes and just duck over the border and get your accommodation at 7.5 per cent cheaper, because that tax does not apply over the border there in New South Wales. So comparatively we are making it cheaper over the border for short-stay accommodation than we are in our coastal towns along that border. Minister, with these job losses that we have in Swifts Creek and your removal of the timber industry, there are a lot of people in East Gippsland actually wondering what you have got against the region, because we are not getting a very fair deal on a whole range of fronts.

I will get onto some of the issues more widely and how this stifles investment. I have got an investment group in my area. They are relatively young people. They want to have a go and they are up-and-comers. They have chosen to invest in real estate. They have avoided the opportunity to invest in the share market, bonds, cryptocurrency or other areas, commodities or whatever it is. They have decided to invest in real estate. They have got a few properties, this group of young people, and they believe that there is opportunity there. They recently attempted to increase their portfolio of investment – we want investment in this state – only to be told by the two lending agencies that they cannot do that. The key component that was put to them was because of the increased costs of the short-stay accommodation that they would incur. They have some rental properties. They have some Airbnbs. They have got a pretty wide portfolio. So we end up with a situation where we want to promote investment in our state to help our local economy and we have this impediment put in place.

Steve Dimopoulos interjected.

Tim BULL: Yes, but it is the lending agencies, Minister. It is the lending agencies that are saying no. It is not them; they want to invest. We have got a government that says they want all the properties to be rentals, and that is just not the case. This will not solve the problem. The surveys that have been done have said people will keep their properties in short-stay accommodation and they will not put them back into the rental market. So this will be investment that is lost to Victoria. We need to promote investment in our local economy, and that will not be achieved by this tax. It will not solve the problem, and it will simply increase costs on those who want to have a holiday in the regions. And in my case, where I have got an electorate that sits on the border, it will provide an incentive to cross the border for accommodation.

I am realising that the lunchbreak is coming up here, and I want to get onto the disability sector, which I touched on earlier. Earlier this week I had the opportunity to meet a young lady by the name of Ashlee Morton, who is a wheelchair user and general manager –

The ACTING SPEAKER (Juliana Addison): Excuse me, member for Gippsland East, the time has come for me to interrupt business for lunch. We will return at 2 o’clock.

Sitting suspended 1:00 pm until 2:02 p.m.

Business interrupted under sessional orders.

The SPEAKER: I acknowledge in the gallery a former member for Carrum, Donna Hope.