Tuesday, 12 November 2024

Bills

Duties Amendment (More Homes) Bill 2024

Second reading

Debate resumed on motion of Harriet Shing:

That the bill be now read a second time.

Evan MULHOLLAND (Northern Metropolitan) (13:47): I rise to speak on the Duties Amendment (More Homes) Bill 2024, and from the outset I confirm that the opposition will not be opposing this bill. But in my contribution I do intend to speak about how we got to this place where this bill has come into the chamber, as it helps symbolise everything wrong with this decade-old Labor government. Getting more people into homes and home ownership is important; indeed it is a fundamental Liberal tenet, allowing Victoria to grow and prosper and for Victorians to build something to pass on to their children. It is why we are not opposing this bill. As my good friend the Shadow Treasurer said, I fully intend to critique that Victorians may be the winners as a result of this bill; there are many, many more Victorians who will be losers as a result of this bill.

It says a lot about this tired decade-old Labor government that the bill we are debating now seeks to reverse their own measure, in this instance from 2017. You have got the same Treasurer and the same tired, old Labor government. But now in 2024 we have a housing crisis which Victorians are dealing with, so here comes government. Here they come, coming back and seeking to reverse something they have already imposed on Victorians in the first place, after the harm has already been done. This government cannot say they were not warned, and we did keep the receipts from back then. Seven years ago the Real Estate Institute of Victoria, the REIV, said:

The REIV does not support the removal of the off-the-plan concessions for investors. This change will reduce the attractiveness of property investment in Victoria, further limiting rental supply at a time when vacancy rates are already tightening.

There it is, in black and white, seven years ago during this government’s first term, and yet they proceeded with it. They proceeded with scrapping the exemption. They proceeded with it to make life harder for Victorians, often vulnerable Victorians. Many Victorians could not afford to buy a home without this exemption being in place, and here we are in 2024. It is characteristic of this government. There has been no apology for their stuff-up, and it is a stuff-up of their own making. We know it is a stuff-up and a massive backflip, because they have sought to bring it back to the chamber. But you would think they would go, ‘We are sorry, we got this wrong.’ You would think they would front up – and I wonder whether any members opposite will do this – and say, ‘We are sorry, we got this wrong.’ They will not. They will wash their hands of it. They know that a change they made has made life more difficult for Victorians trying to buy homes and has made it harder for apartments and multidwelling complexes to get off the ground in terms of the economics of them. They know that because they have said that and they have said that this change will assist in that, but they will not apologise for it. It is a massive stuff-up from this government. My friend the member for Malvern warned the government in 2017. He said at the time:

If you take investors out of the pool for off-the-plan projects, which is the intended effect of this tax increase, you will simply see fewer projects get the go-ahead.

He went on to say:

We have also seen the abolition of the off-the-plan stamp duty concession for everyone except for owner-occupiers. Again another increase in tax, another stupidly thought out, poorly thought out, ill-designed new tax from a Labor government which will have the opposite effect to that which is intended. The government says this is about housing affordability, that this is making it easier for first home buyers to get into the market because they will not be competing with investors for off-the-duty projects anymore.

The opposition understood the ramifications of this policy better than the Labor government, and we were sadly ignored, but now the Labor government is basically echoing some of the very good policy points we made back in 2017.

Here we are with the government pretending they are now fixing the housing crisis by reversing changes that they put in place – tax concessions that they removed themselves. They are here to solve the housing crisis by putting those concessions back. You caused the housing crisis. The government talks about how the status quo is not an option. Meanwhile Richard Wynne went on a spree, blocking housing developments all over the place and setting height limits in places like Brunswick, blocking the Preston activity zone and creating their own activity centre there and blocking our Carnegie activity zone and then eight years later putting their own activity centre there and claiming they were doing something about the housing crisis. You are the status quo, you have been in government for 10 years, and you are out of ideas. You are out of ideas so much that you are creating new ideas from things you ripped out of the hands of aspirational home owners in this state. This is a pathetic attempt to reverse changes that this government made. It is their fault. The housing crisis lies at their feet, from what they did in the past.

Labor’s poor decision-making in 2017 has meant that fewer Victorians, often vulnerable Victorians, have had the opportunity to own their own home and fewer Victorians have had the opportunity to have a roof over their head. In supporting this bill in 2017 the Treasurer said:

We all know how difficult it is to purchase a home, particularly for young Victorians, who are faced with ever increasing house prices and the upfront costs associated with buying a home …

The sad truth is that that was true in his first year on the job and it is even more true now as we mark 10 years of Treasurer Pallas and the Premier as cabinet ministers. It would be refreshingly honest if the Treasurer would repeat those words and acknowledge what we all know to be true: that the government has done just about everything it could to make worse the housing affordability crisis in this state. At least today we have a small mea culpa from this Labor government over one of the many ways in which they are to blame but, as with everything from this government, it comes with a catch.

The government has said they will reverse this change that they made in 2017, but it will only be available for 12 months. Very few Victorians will take up this new initiative from the government. We know that from the government’s own modelling on this, because the government has itself said that this will only cost the budget $55 million. They themselves know a measure like this will be limited in its uptake. The government does not seem to really know what they are trying to achieve with this bill. Does the government expect there to be more investors taking up this time-limited offer or does the government expect more citizens to be taking up this time-limited offer? Because if the intent of the policy is to get more Victorians into homes and the reality of this is that the government expects more investors to engage with this temporary and time-limited measure, then there is no guarantee that Victorians will get into homes.

My colleague the member for Sandringham has cut to the core of what Labor are trying to achieve. This is not a bill about helping Victorians get into the housing market. As the member for Sandringham says, if the property is bought by an investor and if it sits there unoccupied, I am sure the Treasurer and I am sure the Premier and I am sure the State Revenue Office will be there rubbing their hands with glee, watching and waiting to charge the vacant land tax on that property at 1 per cent the first year, 2 per cent the second year and 3 per cent the third year after the dirty deal they did with the Greens, with that 3 per cent sitting for the foreseeable future. This is not about helping new homebuyers get into the market; it is another sneaky attempt to increase their tax revenue to prop up the bottom line after a decade of waste and mismanagement. Credit where credit is due to the Treasurer – he always seems to find new revenue streams and new ways to find new revenue streams: 56 new or increased taxes since coming to office, and their budget is so dire that the Treasurer has resorted to deceiving first home buyers in an attempt to fix his mess.

It has also been highlighted by the industry itself, with Real Estate Buyers Agents Association of Australia president Melinda Jennison saying that the government likely has a hidden agenda with this reform, with increased infrastructure charges and levies likely to flow from inner-city development. We know through the windfall gains tax and we know through these activity centres that as soon as the zoning changes go through the value of the rates increases, and if anyone decides to sell, the government will take half the uplift thanks, which will leave many residents worse off. This is all about a revenue-raising exercise. It has been raised many times with me and my colleagues by the good people of Essendon North and Niddrie who are very concerned about the activity centre proposals and what they mean. Mount Alexander Road has already got two very dangerous and congested roundabouts which they are still waiting on the government to fix. It is a heavily congested area, and it is about get more congested with Labor’s activity centre and catchment area, so much so I was at a recent community forum with about 350 to 400 people, which was also attended by my colleagues James Newbury and John Pesutto. The community members that organised the forum did invite the member for Essendon and the member for Niddrie, and would you believe it, none of them turned up. I also believe the Labor mayor of Moonee Valley was invited, but he did not turn up. Maybe if he did turn up, he would have won his ward in the recent council election. But he did not. Perhaps he should have turned up to the forum. Now he is no longer the mayor, and now he is no longer even in council. Perhaps he should have listened to his community rather than being a Labor lackey like all of these local councillors everywhere.

People are really concerned about the financial impact of these changes and what they will mean. I know my colleague Mr Welch held a community forum on the planning changes for the Suburban Rail Loop which had about 400 people there in Box Hill town hall. They were not too happy with the Labor member at all. I know there are several community forums going on. I am flooded with emails and correspondence from concerned residents, as I know the Labor members will be, except they either do not respond or reply back with platitudes saying, ‘The community will be consulted, but the community will be consulted while we take your consultation and objection rights away’ – even though we are here putting a concession that Labor removed, even though Labor actually passed the Planning and Environment Amendment (Recognising Objectors) Bill 2015, which actually gave VCAT more weight to consider community objections. You have got the same Labor government that gave VCAT more weight to consider objections coming in and saying, ‘We’re going to take all your objection rights away.’ This symbolises how hypocritical this government is. It is 10 years on, and it has run out of ideas. They talk about how the status quo is not an option, when they are literally the status quo and have done nothing and sat on their hands for 10 years. Meanwhile our side of the chamber approved more homes in four years than they have in 10. Yet you have still got this government, out of ideas, trying to put back a concession that they themselves removed. We know that residents will face the financial burden of those activity centre changes.

The real estate buyers agents association know the impact of Labor’s 29 new or increased property taxes, which have actually made property more expensive, made property more unaffordable, made home ownership more out of reach and made Victoria into a place that investors are actually fleeing from. Propertyology head of research Simon Pressley said the government stamp duty offer is a trap for buyers:

It is well known that off-the-plan property purchases have significantly more associated risks than established properties …

The government’s proposal to lure people into such a trap by scrapping stamp duty on new dwellings is reckless policy.

Another issue identified by the Shadow Treasurer is that the short 12-month limit fails to take into account the realities of development. It is not a tap – you cannot just turn it on and see the housing flow immediately; it needs that time to ramp up:

… a 12-month measure might very well create some sort of stimulus, but what we really need – what Victorians really need, what those looking for their own home, their first home, really need – is the certainty of more than 12 months. Under the policy in this bill, they simply do not have it.

These sentiments were echoed by Charter Keck Cramer’s national research executive Richard Temlett, who said that there are fewer than 7000 off-the-plan options currently being marketed. The government cannot fall into the trap of thinking this will bring more development online. The market will not turn on overnight, and I would urge the government to take into account some third-party comments. As Max Shifman from Intrapac Property said in a quite considered article in the Age, where the headline is ‘I’m a developer. Here’s why Jacinta Allan’s high-rise plan won’t get off the ground’, as someone in the industry that would know:

Temporary off-the-plan stamp duty savings of $40,000 do not make up for the extra $700,000 a young family needs … to buy a relatively small three-bedroom apartment in the middle of Brighton, no matter how desirable the area might be.

And we know it will cost much, much more than that. These people work in the industry. They actually know how it operates in the real world, unlike the Premier and Treasurer, who have spent most of their entire adult lives working at 1 Treasury Place. The government claims that this temporary cut of stamp duty will somehow assist them with their much-vaunted but little-achieved attempt to build 80,000 new homes every year. No tinkering around the edges will address the main problem causing Victoria’s housing affordability crisis.

Labor’s addition to exorbitant property taxes is deterring the supply of new housing developments across the state. Half of the 56 new or increased taxes introduced by this government – so 29 – are on property taxes, driving up the cost of housing affordability and putting it out of reach for so many. Industry experts have told us that Labor’s increased taxes make up up to 42 per cent of the cost of a new home, with the Urban Development Institute of Australia stating:

There is a direct and well-documented correlation between –

these –

taxes and growing property prices.

… almost half of every mortgage repayment goes towards paying off these taxes.

As Sir Winston Churchill said, ‘For a nation to try to tax itself into prosperity is like a man standing in a bucket, trying to lift himself up by the handle.’

Another issue we have with this policy is a lack of choice in new homes. Under this concession freestanding family homes are excluded from this exemption, while Victorians living in an apartment or a unit could claim this exemption up to any value. So if you wanted a luxury apartment in the middle of Sandringham or Brighton or somewhere like that, maybe Prahran, or if you wanted a luxury penthouse apartment, you would get an off-the-plan stamp duty concession. But if you are a young family, perhaps a migrant family, with three children, trying to get into your first home, trying to escape the shackles of renting and wanting to move into a standalone townhouse, you will not actually get this exemption. The fairness argument comes into this.

There was some very interesting data that came out recently – it is something that I am passionate about, passionate enough to mention it in my maiden speech – about our plummeting birthrate here in Victoria. Victoria still has the lowest birthrate in the country; it has dropped to around 1.3 children per woman, so we have the lowest in Australia. I do not believe that a whole bunch of apartments and limiting choice in policy in such a way is going to turn that around for Victoria. The Treasurer should know and others should know that this is a deeply worrying economic problem for this state, and you cannot just turn on the immigration tap every time you are worried about the economy. We need to grow our birthrate here in this state, but I fear that our birthrate is declining because of the housing affordability crisis, because young families cannot get into a new home, because they do take into account the cost of living and the security of a roof over their head when making decisions like having a family, like having more children.

We really need to think about this when creating policy. And this policy creates differences between apartments and enables people to get luxury apartments in Prahran – a penthouse in Prahran, a concession for that – but if you want to live in a townhouse in a growth area, there are no concessions for you. That is deeply, deeply unfair and something this government should take into account. The Liberals and Nationals believe in choice. We believe in choice, and we believe in allowing Victorian families to have some control over the sort of home or dwelling, whether it be a house, an apartment or a unit.

This bill, which we do not oppose, will do little to fix the problems of Labor’s making – 56 new taxes in 10 years, half relating to property. I note that this government, actually the Treasurer in 2017, blamed Malcolm Turnbull for the housing crisis. Well, the Treasurer has been in office now for almost 10 years. He sat around the cabinet table while Richard Wynne opposed every new development under the sun, set height limits in Brunswick, opposed the Preston activity zone that we put forward and Carnegie’s activity zone that we put forward and then slapped two-storey height limits in Carnegie, only for their recent announcement to put in an activity centre in Carnegie. So if he wants to find out who caused the housing crisis in Victoria, I suggest the Treasurer look in a mirror, because that is what he has done. That is his legacy in this state, being the status quo. They say the status quo is not an option. The Labor Party are literally the status quo, and the Victorian people will vote out the status quo in 2026, because you cannot put lipstick on a pig on market day. They have caused the housing crisis in this state.

I wanted to get to some amendments that have been discussed with the opposition and indicate the opposition will not oppose Mr Limbrick’s amendments. We think they are eminently sensible amendments. Indeed Mr Limbrick and I were on the stamp duty inquiry together, and I found that a quite good inquiry and a detailed inquiry in terms of policy. I note that the property council presented to both Mr Limbrick and I and spoke about this exact tax, and they did not at that time, under parliamentary record and privilege, say that it should be 12 months. They said that this was distorting growth in the market and that they needed this to build new homes. They did not say they only wanted it for 12 months; that comes from the government. I do agree with the property council and what they submitted directly to that committee in that we need to have this concession to get more people into homes, to make the economics of apartments and dwellings stack up, because currently they do not. If you speak to any property council member around town, they will tell you that the economics currently do not stack up.

But as I was saying, many third parties have already stated publicly that you need two to three years to get one of these apartment complexes off the ground. And for any developer looking at this today who has an apartment complex in the pipeline it will take almost two years for it to get to the stage where they are raising capital off people buying off the plan – stamp duty – such is the red tape that burdens Victoria’s housing market. So 12 months is not going to do anything. It is going to be great for those that are already at that end stage of their developments, but it will not do anything. As for the Greens’ amendments, we will support one of them, which relates to reporting on how this has gone. I want to say on some of the other points that Mr Barber of the Greens supported getting rid of this concession and now you have the Greens here saying that they will support giving back this concession but only for 12 months, so it is quite the backflip also from the Greens. The Labor Party have done a massive backflip on this, but the Greens should not escape criticism for their hypocritical nature in siding with the government on almost everything.

The Greens will circulate amendments to say that investors should not be able to take part in this concession. I used to be a renter. I used to live in Abbotsford right behind the Terminus Hotel, and I know many Greens voters live around there. Many Greens voters have been given the opportunity to have a roof over their head because someone – mum-and-dad investors – happened to invest in capital, invest in an apartment complex, in property. So it is the height of hypocrisy that the Greens would come and say, ‘We don’t want investors to invest in property’ for people who live in their electorates – for Victorians who need a roof over their heads, a place to rent, a place to call home. The economics of these apartment complexes do not stack up if you make rigid rules saying no investors can invest. This is the kind of B-grade economics we see from the Greens political party, who have been hypocrites on this issue, as has the Labor Party. I will end my contribution there.

Aiv PUGLIELLI (North-Eastern Metropolitan) (14:17): I was really enjoying that! I rise today to speak on the Duties Amendment (More Homes) Bill 2024. The Greens will be supporting this bill and seeking to improve it through our amendments. It has long been Greens’ policy to abolish the inequitable stamp duty and replace it with a broad-based land tax. Almost every economist agrees that moving from stamp duty to a broad-based land tax would help ease the housing crisis. It was recommended in 2009 by the Henry tax review, in 2022 by a federal inquiry into housing affordability and again last year by the Victorian parliamentary inquiry into stamp duty, which recommended reform to this inefficient and volatile tax. Stamp duty is a regressive tax. It creates an unnecessary barrier to home ownership, particularly for young people, single people, first-time buyers and those looking to downsize. It makes homes less affordable, and people are charged every time they move. A broad-based land tax could provide a more predictable form of revenue while also offering greater equity and efficiency.

This bill will provide a 12-month stamp duty concession for newly constructed, off-the-plan apartments, units and townhouses, provided that they are part of a strata subdivision. The thresholds will be removed for this period, meaning the concession will be available on eligible properties no matter what the cost and anyone buying an eligible off-the-plan property will be able to take advantage of this concession. This means that not only first-time buyers and owner-occupiers can apply for this concession but also investors, companies and trusts, and I might come back to that a little bit later. This concession will apply between 21 October 2024 and 21 October 2025 and will allow the purchaser to deduct 100 per cent of the outstanding construction and refurbishment costs when determining the amount of stamp duty due. Stamp duty will still be paid on the land value.

The Greens will be seeking to amend this bill to add some additional provisions. I ask that those amendments be circulated now.

Amendments circulated pursuant to standing orders.

Aiv PUGLIELLI: The first will replicate the requirement for the first home buyers concession that the person be an owner-occupier for the first 12 months after receiving the concession. If this should fail, a subsequent amendment would require that the house be used as someone’s home, their primary place of residence, rather than be left empty. We will also seek to ensure that the land on which a property receiving this concession is built has not been public land within the last three years, and we are proposing a non-controversial reporting requirement so that the public will know how the scheme is being used and the impact it is having on housing affordability. I hope that with the successful passage of this bill and potentially the Greens’ amendments this will be a step in the right direction to the complete replacement of stamp duty with a broad-based land tax.

There is so much work to be done to address this housing crisis. We cannot keep tinkering around the edges with small changes; we need bold and decisive action to actually make sure that everyone in our state has a safe and affordable place to live. This means doing more. It means building 100,000 public homes and 100,000 truly affordable homes and not relying on the private sector to do this. These public homes should be built by a public builder who will not seek to profit from the government at every turn. It means not knocking down massive amounts of existing public housing and instead renovating and refurbishing public homes. It means pushing the federal government to reform negative gearing and capital gains tax. It means protecting renters and making sure that there are enough affordable places for them to live; it is completely untenable that unlimited rent rises continue to be permitted. Housing has been commodified for too long. People are being pushed to the edge. They need decisive action now, not more handouts for developers. Instead, commit to true investment in public and genuinely affordable housing.

Sheena WATT (Northern Metropolitan) (14:22): I rise today to also contribute on the Duties Amendment (More Homes) Bill 2024. I would like to highlight the significant steps the Allan Labor government is taking to address the essential challenges in housing with particular focus on the newly expanded off-the-plan stamp duty concession. This initiative and other recent announcements form part of our comprehensive strategy aimed at boosting housing supply, reducing costs and supporting a fairer, more accessible housing market for all Victorians. The Allan Labor government’s off-the-plan stamp duty concession, announced on 21 October, is a transformative measure that will have an immediate positive impact on Victorians looking to buy a home, because it is this government that understands the need for not just advocating for but delivering more affordable housing for Victorians. This concession allows anyone – and by anyone I mean first home owners, owner-occupiers or investors – who purchases an off-the-plan apartment, unit or townhouse to benefit from significant savings on stamp duty. In the past this concession was only available under certain conditions, with some capped-price thresholds, which often excluded many buyers from taking advantage of it. However, with this new change these restrictions have been removed.

This initiative is not about just making it easier for individuals that buy homes; it is also about a boost for our construction industry, which is currently feeling the pinch of slower sales due to high interest rates. The initiative will also create more job opportunities by reducing up-front costs. This concession will also incentivise developers to get projects off the ground sooner, increasing the supply of housing across the state and providing much-needed options for renters as well.

Can I just say that the mechanics of this concession are straightforward but really powerful. By deducting 100 per cent of the outstanding construction costs when determining stamp duty, eligible buyers can reduce their stamp duty obligations really significantly, and I will just happily provide an example of that. For a $620,000 apartment bought off the plan, a buyer could save around $28,000, paying just $4000 in stamp duty instead of the full $32,000. This represents a really substantial financial relief for buyers, allowing more Victorians to enter the housing market or move to homes that better suit their needs. It really is an important point, and we often hear stories of older Victorians hesitating to move from their family homes into more suitable housing because of the cost of stamp duty. This policy not only makes smaller dwellings more affordable but also frees up larger properties for families and creates new opportunities for subdivisions that they may not have considered otherwise.

Victoria’s housing market really is facing unprecedented demand, and we are committed to meeting this challenge head-on. For many Victorians home ownership can feel out of reach, and the challenges go beyond just purchasing a property. Renters too do face difficulties, whether it is finding affordable housing, maintaining secure tenancies or even dealing with disputes. This government recognises that homes mean more opportunities for everyone. More homes means more opportunities, and our commitment extends beyond just building houses; it is about creating sustainable, affordable and high-quality housing that meets the diverse needs of Victorians right across the state.

The stamp duty concession is just one piece of the puzzle. It aligns with our broader housing policy, which includes creating more rental support and establishing frameworks that protect renters from unfair practices. To that end, the Allan Labor government is also introducing significant reforms for renters, some that we may have heard of in the public domain recently that really aim to simplify and improve the rental experience across Victoria. We know that disputes with landlords can be stressful, can be costly and can be ultimately quite time consuming. For issues like repairs, bond claims and rental increases, renters really should not have to resort to lengthy legal processes, which we know has happened. To address this we have established Rental Dispute Resolution Victoria, or RDRV, which will commence operations in mid-2025. The free service will provide renters and landlords with a practical avenue for resolving disputes quickly and efficiently with the expertise of skilled dispute resolution professionals. More than 60 per cent of cases are expected to be resolved through this service, reducing stress and cutting legal expenses for all the parties involved. I am hopeful that this will free up VCAT to focus on other disputes and provide more efficiency for Victorians.

RDRV is just one component of our broader rental reforms. We have also cracked down on rental providers and estate agents that do the wrong thing. Since March this year our renting taskforce has been actively inspecting properties to ensure they meet mandatory standards for safety and livability. This taskforce, I am happy to advise, has already issued more than $450,000 in fines for rental offences, demonstrating our commitment to enforcing fair practices in the rental market.

I would like to take a moment to thank the Minister for Consumer Affairs, Gab Williams in the other place, for the incredible work she has done to make sure that renters are treated fairly and with dignity and respect. You see, in addition to expanding the housing supply, we are also focused on the quality of the homes that are being built, and the Great Design Fast Track initiative announced on 27 October aims to promote the construction of well-designed, affordable housing that aligns with Victoria’s architectural history, heritage and commitment to sustainability. Under this plan, developers who meet higher standards in quality, aesthetics and sustainability will benefit from an expedited planning process. This fast-tracked pathway will apply to apartment and townhouse projects of three to six storeys, providing greater opportunities for architects and developers to create buildings that are visually appealing, energy efficient and, importantly, built to last. Through initiatives like the Great Design Fast Track and our state design book, we will be showcasing exemplary housing projects which are actively working to encourage high-quality, affordable housing throughout the state. This is not just about quantity; it is about fostering a culture of excellence in design, ensuring that every Victorian can access housing that is safe, attractive and sustainable.

An effective housing strategy considers not only where people live but how they live, importantly, and developments that only benefit, well, developers and do not take into consideration how Victorians like to live need to be relegated to the past. You see, access to transport, to schools and to jobs is really an essential factor in building a vibrant community, and the expansion of our activity centres announced on 20 October does focus on creating more housing near train and tram stations and offering easier access to public transport in Melbourne’s inner suburbs. Encouraging housing developments around 50 key transport hubs will aim to deliver more than 300,000 new homes across Victoria by 2051, supporting a sustainable and a well-connected city. I have mentioned it before and I will say it again: I love apartment living and have connected to my community and services that I value. By situating new homes, housing and apartments around public transport, we are supporting both the environment and the economy, reducing car dependency and making it easier for people to access work, school or indeed leisure activities. With 25 initial centres already announced, this program reflects our commitment to thoughtful urban planning that prioritises community needs.

Let me just say, beyond our inner-city suburbs we recognise the demand for housing in Victoria’s outer burbs. On 22 October we announced a new $150 million round of funding through the Growth Areas Infrastructure Contribution Fund, also known as the GAIC fund, which will support projects in rapidly expanding areas – I am thinking Cardinia, Casey and Wyndham – and this will support essential infrastructure, including roads, schools and healthcare facilities, ensuring that our growing communities are well supported and well connected. Furthermore, our landmark 10-year greenfields plan announced on 23 October will unlock new land for housing, providing space for 180,000 homes over the next decade. This pipeline offers developers the clarity and support they need to begin construction promptly, creating more opportunities for Victorian families to find some homes in established suburbs.

I know that there are a number of other speakers on this bill before us, so I might take the moment to wrap up and just say that these Allan Labor government housing initiatives represent a really bold and comprehensive approach to Victoria’s housing challenges. From off-the-plan stamp duty concessions to expanded rental protection, from streamlining planning processes to supporting good-quality design, we are tackling the housing crisis from every angle, and for Victorians this means more choice, more security and more opportunities to find a place to call home. We are committed to fostering a housing market that works for everyone, where affordability, accessibility and quality go hand in hand. Whether you are a first home buyer, a renter or a growing family, these policies are designed with you in mind, ensuring that the Victorian dream of a secure, sustainable and affordable home is achievable for all. I commend the Treasurer but also the Minister for Planning and the Minister for Housing for their work to ensure that this important reform will help Victorians, whether they rent or own, to have a place to call home. I support these changes, and I commend the bill to the house.

David DAVIS (Southern Metropolitan) (14:32): I am pleased to make a contribution on this bill – this half-baked but one-tiny-step-in-the-right-direction bill. We have a housing problem in this state, a housing problem caused by Labor. Labor have been in power in this state, I think it is important to realise, for all bar four years of the last 25, so the problems in the housing market – the lack of supply, the issues with housing – are entirely due to Labor, and the current Premier and the Premier before her, Andrews and Allan, are responsible for what has happened over the last 10 years in this state. They have had effective majorities in the lower house and effective majorities in the upper house all the way through, and what they have done with housing is nothing short of a disgrace. They have layered tax upon tax upon tax. About 29 new and increased taxes are related to properties and construction. When you talk to the Property Council of Australia or you talk to the Urban Development Institute of Australia and look at the independent work that they have had done, it is clear that between 40 and 50 per cent of the cost of a new dwelling is comprised of state and federal taxes, of which the state component is overwhelmingly the largest component. So this government has jacked up tax year on year on year, and it has made it harder for young people to get into a home – much more difficult.

Now they have realised in the last six months, in panic, that their policies have not worked, and they are now flailing around, they are floundering, they are flapping as they move forward to say, ‘What on earth can we do?’ So we get this situation where we get a thought bubble almost every day or two on a further step that we could take on housing and development. Well, let me give you some ideas. Under the Liberals and the Nationals in government between 2010 and 2014, Matthew Guy as Minister for Planning approved far more housing than this government is doing at an annual rate, and indeed in those four years he approved almost as much as this government has approved over a decade. It has been a terrible outcome under the Labor planning ministers.

The Labor planning ministers like to point at councils. They like to say the City of Whitehorse is terrible or the City of Boroondara is terrible or the City of Frankston is terrible and they should approve more housing. But actually the truth is many times the planning scheme amendments are sitting on the minister’s desk in a tower in the city. The whole hold-up, half the time, is with the minister – the minister’s failure to approve, the minister’s failure to make the planning scheme amendments that are needed to allow projects to go forward, the uncertainty created by the minister.

We had for a long while there ‘Do-nothing Dick’. ‘Do-nothing Dick’ was Dick Wynne’s nickname. He was called Do-nothing Dick because he did nothing, and we got deeper and deeper into a housing problem as Do-nothing Dick sat around and stood there doing nothing. The approvals were not up to scratch. Do-nothing Dick was the first problem. Now you have got a new Minister for Planning. She has had a conversion. My great colleague here has pulled out a number of the key quotes that the current member for Seaford, now the planning minister, can have attributed to her criticising development. But now she has had a conversion experience because the government is in panic. Instead of having careful, methodical policy over time to bring forward new housing developments to ensure that there are proper quantities of new homes and houses coming forward, we have now got the member for Seaford, in her current iteration as planning minister, panicking and bringing forward things that in the past she would not have had a bar of.

Michael Galea: On a point of order, Acting President, I will just remind Mr Davis that the fine Ms Kilkenny is in fact the member for Carrum, not for Seaford. I know that he has an issue with Seaford when he gets confused with sky rails, but she is the member for Carrum.

The ACTING PRESIDENT (Jeff Bourman): Thank you, Mr Galea. That is not technically a point of order, but Mr Davis has taken it on board, so we will move on.

David DAVIS: I have taken it on board, but she has of course targeted Seaford. That is what she has done with her new planning scheme amendments that are intending to create a dense high-rise zone. She is authorising six-storey as-of-right development along the coast in Seaford, in in the electorate of Carrum, or maybe it is Frankston at that point. Either way, it is nearby and it is close to sensitive coastal zones, but now she has reserved her previous opposition to intense development and is now saying you can have six storeys as of right along those sensitive coastal strips. You just imagine, though. You think of the height of the tea-tree, and now this is going to tower way above the tea-tree. There will not be any issue with views from this location. They will be able to see for miles out across the sea as they can see right out across the tea-tree along that strip in Seaford.

Let me be clear here, there does need to be more development and more sensible development. There is plenty of scope for sensible infill development. I am being very clear here. There are clear locations in Melbourne’s middle and inner suburbs where additional development can and should take place. But there is a process about how that should happen, and there is a good sense in protecting heritage and protecting the ambience and quality of life in our suburbs. Unrestrained, unrestricted high-rise development as of right in sensitive locations is not going to deliver the outcome that is required.

What we are seeing with this government is a proposal to tear up heritage protections – they will be worth absolutely nothing.

Members interjecting.

David DAVIS: Michael Buxton made very clear that his conversations with the Victorian Planning Authority show that they are modelling 50 per cent destruction of heritage. That is what they are modelling. Your government is modelling 50 per cent destruction. Fifty per cent of heritage homes destroyed, bulldozed, gone –

Members interjecting.

The ACTING PRESIDENT (Jeff Bourman): Order! Extra volume does not make you any more right. Mr Davis to continue without help and at a reasonable volume.

David DAVIS: Of course when interjections come it is easy to over-respond to them. I have got to take on board the need to not respond to these disorderly interjections.

But there are many locations across the city, and Mr Mulholland and I have talked about one in particular that I see, and I know this area quite well: the Maribyrnong defence site. It is 128 hectares of land along the river. Why has that land not been developed? This government has had 10 years to work with federal governments of whatever colour to clean it up, to get development happening there. I think you could put thousands of houses on that sort of location. Then you go to places like the edges of the city, and you see the state government has stalled precinct structure plan after precinct structure plan. They have stalled them; they have blocked them. We were down in Casey the other day. There is one precinct structure plan down there that has been languishing for five years. They rip out the tax. They take the growth areas infrastructure contribution, but they never give the GAIC back. The GAIC never comes back.

They require approvals from the minister, they require support from various agencies – water authorities, cultural heritage management plans, electricity agencies – a whole sweep of different agencies. It is the job of government to coordinate these and bring them on. And let us face it: you have had 10 years. Ten years and they are not delivering. Where is the new housing coming forward? Why have they not approved these? All of those precinct structure plans that have been languishing without the proper support are entirely the fault of Labor, the fault of the planning minister, the fault of the current Premier and the fault of the previous Premier. They blocked a lot of these precinct structure plans and they sat on the minister’s desk year after year. We had the big circle-go-round with the Victorian Planning Authority looking up the wazoo of this and that and the ministers over here and the poor old councils trying to bring on precinct structure plans with no help from the government. Melbourne Water is over there. Melbourne Water, you cannot move them, I can tell you. And then there are the cultural heritage management plans, the Indigenous approvals that are required –

Members interjecting.

The ACTING PRESIDENT (Jeff Bourman): Order! Do not make me stand up again – it is like exercise. Please do not do it.

David DAVIS: The cultural heritage management plans have stalled developments across the state. They have stalled developments. They are a very slow process. Melbourne Water, the cultural heritage management plans, the electricity organisations – this is what has happened on a lot of these projects. Slow, slow, slow is what is going on. They are very slow trains bringing these forward, and that is entirely the state government’s fault, entirely the failure of this government.

Who abolished the stamp duty concession? Which government abolished it? It was the Labor government. This goes back to the 1990s, the stamp duty concession off the plan on larger developments, enabling difficult and complex and larger capital requirements in developments to get off the ground and bring forward additional supply. We told them in this chamber when they killed the off-the-plan that this would stop housing development, it would slow the approval rate and it would mean less people were able to get into homes – and that is what your lot did. Your lot did it. You actually ripped the off-the-plan exemption away –

The ACTING PRESIDENT (Jeff Bourman): Order! Mr Davis, it is unparliamentary to point. Also, Mr Davis to continue without assistance and at a reasonable volume.

David DAVIS: Thank you, Acting President. Again, I am sorry for my response, but the truth is in 2017 Labor took away the off-the-plan concession. They took it away, and we told them. I am going to say ‘I told you so’ because I did tell them so and others on this side of the house did tell them so. They did not want to hear that, though. They did not want to hear that if you rip away the off-the-plan exemption you are actually going to get less development, and that is what happened. It is just another one of the taxes that is layered on – tax after tax after tax, restriction after restriction after restriction. That is what this government has done for the 25-minus-four years that it has been in power – it has been there since 1999, bar the four years when Matthew Guy was planning minister in that period. Other than that, Labor have had control that whole time, and they have layered on tax after tax after tax after tax. That is the truth of the matter, and that is why it is so hard for young families to get homes.

We need to make sure that those taxes are wound back to the extent that this winds the tax back for one year – for one year. Twenty-five years they have been in power, minus four – that is the truth of the matter. In this immediate sweep they have been there for 10 years, and in 2017 they tore away the off-the-plan exemption. And of course it has had an effect. Of course it has slowed development. Of course it has meant less options of greater density in targeted and thoughtful locations.

This government hates the eastern suburbs too. Let us be clear what is going on here: they hate the eastern suburbs, and they are out to really crunch many of the suburbs in Melbourne’s east and south-east. They are doing that; whether it is Whitehorse or Boroondara or Monash or Stonnington, that is what they are doing. I note that Mr Mulholland has worked with community groups to host some forums out in the north-west, in Niddrie and North Essendon. The government is going for broke with high-density there. Well, I say: protect our community. Make sure you are bringing through proper supply. Matthew Guy could do that – (Time expired)

David LIMBRICK (South-Eastern Metropolitan) (14:47): This is rather embarrassing: this is the second tax bill brought forward by the government that the Libertarian Party will be supporting in a row. I am a little bit worried that the government is going to use this as some sort of propaganda in the future and wave it around and say, ‘Our tax bills are so good even the Libertarians support them.’ I hope that they end this madness soon. Nevertheless, this is a tax cut. It is adding in a stamp duty concession for off-the-plan townhouses and apartments, and this also includes investors. This is undoubtedly a good thing. This will make it more attractive to invest in apartments and more attractive to buy apartments and townhouses, so I will be supporting this. I think it is important to think bigger than this, though. We need to think about what has actually caused this housing crisis, not just here in Victoria, not just in Australia but throughout many Western countries. In fact I note that in some places in Canada, like Toronto, their housing crisis is even worse than here.

The thing that made Western countries rich and prosperous was our acknowledgement and the defence of property rights. Since the Second World War, on property in general we have had more and more and more things that attack property rights: things like more taxes, which we are talking about today – that is an attack on property rights – planning controls, heritage controls, neighbourhood character, cultural heritage management plans et cetera et cetera et cetera. All of these things really are people that do not own some form of property having a say on someone else’s property. That is an attack on property rights, and that makes it less attractive for people to own property, to invest in property. It has resulted in a dysfunctional market, which is what we have in Victoria and many other places throughout our nation. We have a dysfunctional market that is not adapting to demand. A tax cut will help with that, as we saw throughout the stamp duty inquiry. Stamp duty is one of the worst taxes because it disincentivises not only people buying places but also transactions, so we end up with a misallocation in the market. People are not living in accommodation that is suitable for their needs because they do not want to pay the money to shift to another house. They are travelling further from work because they do not want to move closer to work because they would have to pay this massive stamp duty, or they are not taking a job further away from their home because they cannot afford to pay the huge stamp duty that would be required to buy a new house. Stamp duty has all sorts of negative effects.

With taxes the classic motto is that you tax things that you want less of and you lower tax on things that you want more of. If you want less arson attacks, for example, you lower tobacco excise tax. If you want more employment, you lower payroll tax. If you want more people to own houses, you lower stamp duty and land tax. I will be strongly supporting this bill, but I want to make it better, so what I have done is draft an amendment. Can I have that circulated now, please.

Amendments circulated pursuant to standing orders.

David LIMBRICK: I agree with much of the commentary that has been made by many in this chamber and in the media that 12 months is entirely too short to have a real effect. The idea of lowering taxes should be to incentivise people to make different decisions, but because of this short timeframe many of the people that would benefit from this stamp duty concession have already made the decision. It is not affecting the market at all. As has been pointed out by Mr Mulholland and others, the lead time on many of these projects, especially apartments, is extremely long, so they will not benefit from this 12-month timeframe. Therefore what my amendment seeks to do is something very, very simple: it seeks to make this concession permanent. I am certain that everyone in this chamber that supports more housing – both more owner-occupiers and more rentals – in Victoria will support this amendment, because that is exactly what it would result in.

I note there has been some commentary. I do not think the government support this – we will wait and see – because they are worried about the financial impact. I think the Treasurer said in the media that the cost in forgone revenue would be approximately $55 million over the 12 months. My response to that is we already saw that the government wasted $589 million on a Commonwealth Games that we did not have, so if we had not made one bad decision, we could have done this for a decade. I think that there are a lot of things that the government can do to cut back on spending. They could tap the brakes on some of these projects. They are at the point now where their own projects are competing for labour and for resources, and that is what is causing wages and materials costs to go through the roof. If they slow down and tap the brakes on some of these projects, that would maybe lower costs. I have got lots of ideas for cutting back departments and things like this, and I am more than happy to talk with the Treasurer’s office about all my ideas. I have got lots and lots of ideas on things that we could cut. $55 million is not much in the scheme of things, considering that it will result in more people getting houses, cheaper rentals and also making Victoria a more attractive place to invest in.

My vision for Victoria is not a state that everyone thinks is a basket case. I want Victoria to be a leader on investment. I want everyone to see Victoria and say, ‘That’s a place where I want to invest. They welcome investment. They welcome people bringing capital there from all over the world.’ That is what I would like to see. We are not there yet, but this amendment and this bill will help a little bit.

Ryan BATCHELOR (Southern Metropolitan) (14:54): I am very pleased to rise to speak on the Duties Amendment (More Homes) Bill 2024, a piece of legislation that seeks to make amendments to introduce a 12-month off-the-plan land transfer duty concession for eligible apartments and townhouses, commencing on 21 October 2024, subject obviously to the passage of this legislation. It was one of a series of important policy announcements made by the Premier recently as part of the Allan Labor government’s absolute focus on giving more Victorians the opportunity to buy a home. We cannot and will not stop our commitment, our endeavour and our absolute undying work to see that more Victorians are given the opportunity to buy a home. That is what this legislation before us will do as part of a broad suite of measures to help build more homes here in Victoria.

I have spoken a lot in the last little while, the last year or so, about the housing crisis in the Parliament. I have made a series of contributions, and the central point I have made in each of those contributions is that we are not going to fix the housing crisis unless we build more homes. Whether we talk about social housing, whether we talk about planning or whether we talk about tax arrangements to support the construction of apartments and townhouses, as this bill does today, building more homes is the way we are going to solve the housing crisis here in Victoria, and I will absolutely stand up time and time again in this place and keep repeating that mantra until we have got the job done. We are pulling every lever we can to make sure that more homes are being built here in Victoria, and that is why I am proud to support this legislation here today.

The legislation will introduce a 12-month off-the-plan stamp duty concession to purchase eligible apartments and townhouses by allowing a 100 per cent deduction of the outstanding construction and refurbishment costs when determining how much stamp duty is owed. This tax concession will make it easier and more affordable for buyers, while providing the incentive to developers to provide the homes we need. It removes, for the period, the restrictive eligibility thresholds of $750,000 for first home buyers and $550,000 for existing home buyers. In practice it will mean that a Victorian family, whether a couple or a single buyer, could pay around $28,000 less in stamp duty on a $620,000 apartment, with stamp duty slashed from $32,000 to just $4000. Obviously the amount that is actually saved will depend on how much construction has taken place when the contract is signed, and obviously that will vary by individual case. So we are cutting up-front costs for buyers, speeding up new building and making it more affordable for anyone who wants to buy a home off the plan in this state. We were listening to the industry when they told us that this was one of the things that would help facilitate the construction of more homes in this state, and we have acted in response. There was feedback, and I heard some of it myself, that the lack of pre-sale activity was one of the barriers to larger scale developments progressing to the construction phase, and that is what this legislation is designed to achieve.

I was very pleased recently to be with the Treasurer, who was the Acting Premier at the time, and the Minister for Planning to announce the approval of a very significant development under the Minister for Planning’s development facilitation powers to construct 365 new homes in Hawthorn on a site previously owned by the University of Melbourne, who sold the site and no longer needed it for their education purposes. A development is underway, fast-tracked by the Allan Labor government’s development facilitation program. 365 new homes will be built on that site. According to the developer, who we spoke to on the day, the changes made by the Allan Labor government, the decisions taken by the Minister for Planning, were shaving 12 to 18 months off the timeframe for that development, which is a significant timesaving in bringing more homes to market. Through the work that was done as part of that development facilitation program, the planning authority worked with the developers to make sure that we maximised the amenity on the site. For example, on that site in Hawthorn more than 80 trees along the perimeter are being preserved as part of the development. There is going to be 5000 square metres of open space in this development – far, far in excess of what statutory minimum requirements would have been. About three trees would have needed to be preserved under the existing rules, but through the development facilitation program and through the work that was done between the planning authority and the developers we will now see a development with 80 trees and 5000 square metres of open space 12 to 18 months faster than would have been possible under the existing rules.

Right next door to that development in Hawthorn we have just had construction completed and residents moved back into a new social and affordable housing development in Bills Street, where 52 old social housing units were demolished to make way for 206 new apartments, new dwellings and new homes for Victorians, a 98 per cent increase in the amount of social housing available on that site. What we are going to see just on one block in Hawthorn, thanks to both the Big Housing Build and the work being done by the Minister for Planning, is about 500 new homes across the two sites, an old university site and an old social housing site, which had about 50 homes there before. Across the new site we are going to have close to 500 new homes available for Victorians: 206 of them are available and people have moved in already and 365 will be in there in about 12 to 18 months, faster than they would have otherwise been, because of the actions of the Allan Labor government and because of the way the development facilitation program is bringing developments onstream faster.

What this bill will do in the context of those sorts of changes is ensure that once the planning approval has progressed – once the faster planning approvals are given – construction will be able to start a lot quicker because of pre-sales and prefinancing getting more apartments sold so that construction certainty and financing certainty are there to enable these developments to get construction underway faster. That is exactly what Victoria needs and exactly what, particularly, Melbourne needs to make sure that we have got the housing available for the community and to meet the needs of our growing city. We know that it is working. We know. You just have to look at the statistics to prove it. Victoria is approving more homes than any other state. Last year just under 53,000 new homes were approved, almost 10,000 more than in New South Wales – 10,000 more than a state that is significantly bigger than us. More homes are being approved here in Victoria, and the work continues. We do have more to do. We do have ambitious targets, but we have also got an ambitious policy agenda to go with it. We have seen that through the way that the ministers and the Premier – we have seen absolute leadership from the Premier on this issue – have been out over the course of the last month talking about housing and talking about giving more Victorians the opportunity to own a home close to their family and close to the places that they grew up, so they do not have to move away too far and can remain connected to the communities that they know and love. That is the crux of what we are trying to do with things like our activity centre program.

What I have found really interesting in the contributions we have had in this debate thus far is that on the one hand we had Mr Davis imploring ministers to act – he spent a large part of his speech critiquing the past and saying we just need ministers to act. That is exactly what we have got this government doing. That is exactly what we have got in the Minister for Planning, a minister who is acting to get more homes built for Victorians. She is not just talking; she is acting, she is approving. But what we see from those opposite is campaigns to stop more homes being built here in Victoria and criticisms of this government’s efforts to build more homes for more Victorians. They do not want to see more homes being built in our communities. They particularly do not want to see more homes being built in our middle and inner suburbs, which are close to infrastructure, close to great schools, close to jobs, close to amenities. They are blockers on that front; they do not want to see it. Whilst Mr Davis had the temerity to stand up and say to the chamber that he thought that there are many locations across the city where developments ‘can and should take place’ – he got up and said that – the only place that he actually mentioned was well outside his own backyard and well outside of the places that he then went and passionately defended against any further development. He said he wanted to ‘protect our community’.

What I want to see is more homes for more Victorians being built in places where there is good infrastructure, where there are upgraded schools, where they are close to jobs, close to opportunities. I will absolutely be supportive of developments like the one that I spoke about in Hawthorn on the old Melbourne Uni site. It was brought to market, and planning approval was delivered 12 to 18 months faster than it would have otherwise been thanks to the Labor government’s development facilitation program. It stands next door to 200 new homes – a 98 per cent increase in social housing on the site next door – a development that was opposed by the Liberal Party. So whilst others oppose the building of homes in our communities, Labor supports more opportunity for more homes to be built so that more Victorians can live in and be part of great communities. There are so many things that this Labor government is doing to support housing I cannot go through them all.

One of the other things that I do just want to touch on is the incredible work that is being done to support rights for renters here in Victoria. We have a new rental dispute resolution body being set up so that simple disputes between renters and landlords, such as about repairs or maintenance or damage or bond claims or rental increases, can be resolved more quickly through a free public dispute resolution service so that we have the capacity for any disputes between renters and their landlords to be resolved. This is just one element of the extensive program of support for renters in this state that this Labor government is putting through alongside the plans that we are already putting through to get more homes built.

This legislation today, by creating this tax concession for off-the-plan apartment and townhouse purchases, is another step that we are taking to make sure that there are more homes for more Victorians.

Renee HEATH (Eastern Victoria) (15:09): I rise to speak on the Duties Amendment (More Homes) Bill 2024, which is quite an interesting bill. It is basically the government saying that they are trying to tackle the housing crisis that they created. They are reintroducing an exemption that they abolished, yet of course they are trying to look like the heroes, like they are going a long way to help people. In this state over the past 10 years, this government has introduced or increased 55 taxes, and 29 of those have been property taxes, which has obviously caused rental providers to absolutely flee the state and has made living just about unaffordable. I love what Mr Davis said before. He said this is a half-baked-but-step-in-the-right-direction bill, and I agree with his summation. It has been very interesting to see some of those opposite get very stroppy when my colleagues point out the facts that just do not go with their narrative. So it has been quite interesting.

Victoria’s housing policies, especially legislation offering stamp duty concessions on new builds, fail to address the core issues of housing availability, property rights and investment security. The government’s recent housing legislation is politically expedient but lacks the necessary depth and foresight. Instead of effectively addressing housing affordability and security, the policy appears to prioritise immediate optics over substantial, long-term solutions. It is a manipulation, really, of the public’s opinion that undermines substantial legislative reform and perpetuates Victoria’s housing and investment challenges. I have been amazed to hear them say that the Liberal Party are – what do they keep calling us?

Richard Welch interjected.

Renee HEATH: Blockers – that is it. They are acting as if we are the people that do not support people getting into houses when that just could not be further from the truth.

There are two principles for any investment, and they are secure property rights and the rule of law. Under Labor, Victoria lacks both. Legislation that does not address these underlying issues will only see very short-term impacts. In addition to this, the small concessions for a narrow range of properties proposed in this bill are for future costs and are due once the building is completed. This does not address the present housing needs or provide tax relief for standalone homes. Then there is the reality that many apartments do not get finished. There have been lengthy delays, cost blowouts and new taxes under this government. We saw the disastrous way they handled the pandemic. There have been insolvent and shoddy developers. These things are all well documented.

Head of research at Propertyology, a guy named Simon Pressley, said that the government’s stamp duty offer was a trap for buyers. I thought, ‘That’s interesting.’ This is what he said:

It is well known that off-the-plan property purchases have significantly more associated risks than established properties …

The government’s proposal to lure people into such a trap by scrapping stamp duty on new dwellings is reckless policy.

I thought that was incredible. Even if completed, the process often takes years to complete, so this will not do anything to stimulate housing demand today, when people are desperately needing cost relief and a place to live now, not in the years to come.

Another man, national research executive Richard Temlett, said that while 32,000 sales is not beyond the realm of possibility in the coming 12 months, it is likely to be lower, as there are fewer than 7000 currently being marketed. He said:

The government can’t fall into the trap of thinking it will bring them all online, the market won’t turn on overnight …

Finally, the bill was designed to stonewall any objections and is a shallow political attempt to make the government appear to be relieving the housing affordability crisis. The government did this by issuing a press release that pre-emptively framed us as attempting to oppose good housing policy. We have seen this in many of the speeches today from those opposite. They have said, ‘The coalition and the Greens block; they don’t want people to get into houses’ – things that are completely false. The Premier’s media release makes it clear. It says:

The Government is concerned that the Liberals and Greens will work together to try to block or delay this legislation … If they do so, it will stop tax cuts for people who want to buy a home.

This is such a disingenuous tactic that manipulates public debate through narrowly framing any opposition as not wanting Victorians to own a home. This could not be further from the truth, and it is dishonest politics – the sort of dishonest politics that has got this state into the financial mess that it is in today.

What I find worse is that they give Victorians a crumb and then it is like they come up with an amazing press release to look as if they are doing something, and they want the Victorians that are suffering because of their horrific decisions to be grateful. It is quite disgusting. This government has done everything it can to tax property and housing investment beyond reach and to disallow people, to make it impossible for young Victorians to get into a home. I want you to consider as well this statement from the Premier’s same press release:

Recent ABS data showed Victoria was number one in the country for home approvals, home construction starts, and home construction completions.

What decade was she referring to there? When you actually look at the facts and the ABS data from earlier this year, they show that the number of houses provided for construction in Victoria has crashed to the lowest level in a decade. So the Premier’s comments are designed to deliberately stifle proper debate and analysis, which would expose this shallow, short-sighted and wasteful legislation that will ultimately fail ordinary Victorians and will not deal with the core reasons that are driving housing affordability.

In closing I just also want to raise that even in my short two years here I have seen and I have heard so many people talk about how rental providers are fleeing the state because there are more property taxes here, there is more red tape here and it is more expensive to live here. And the more heavy-handed legislation Labor introduces, the more Victorians suffer. Despite the Premier’s claim of Victoria having the highest housing approvals, the data completely contradicts this. PropTrack revealed that the number of homes on sale on realestate.com.au was up 10.2 per cent year on year and the strongest activity for that month since 2015. Melbourne has also had the third-largest jump in listings of any capital city apart from Canberra and Sydney, rising 16 per cent year on year. This is not an attractive place to invest. It is not an attractive place to start a business, to build a home. Because of the uncertainty that this government has created, it is very hard for people to be confident in this state.

We will be supporting this bill because it is a limp in the right direction, but I will close by saying that it is Labor’s housing crisis. They created it, so they really need to do a whole lot to address it.

Michael GALEA (South-Eastern Metropolitan) (15:18): I rise to speak on the Duties Amendment (More Homes) Bill 2024. We know that more homes for Victorians means more opportunity for Victorians, and unlike the blockers opposite, this is a government that is supporting providing all Victorians with those opportunities, a government that is committed to supporting all Victorians with their aspirations, including those of my generation, millennials, and those younger than us, gen Z, as well. This is a government, a Premier and a Minister for Planning who staunchly believe that every Victorian should have that opportunity to work hard to buy or build their own home.

We know clearly from their statements today that that is not what those opposite want. We have heard some rather curious claims from members opposite already today in their contributions so far. The first point I would make is that this is one very important part of addressing Victoria’s housing crisis, but from listening to the contribution of Dr Heath one could be forgiven for assuming that all the government was doing was bringing this bill in and saying, ‘We’ll do this little temporary concession – job done.’ But as I am sure the good Dr Heath well knows, that is not what we are doing. That is one of many reforms announced by the Premier over the last several weeks. Those reforms include, for example, fairer renting with those new rental reforms, which come on top of previous reforms in this space – nation-leading reforms by the state Labor government. Another part of it is the short-stay levy, which was introduced and will help to increase the availability of housing for people to live in.

Evan Mulholland interjected.

Michael GALEA: Mr Mulholland, you might not be supportive of that, but in order to support people to live in these houses we need to make them available. It is also about the granny flat changes from last year and the recent announcement about making it easier for Victorians to do simple two-lot subdivisions on their lots. For people that have that extra space that want to be able to help some fellow Victorians and make some money in the process, they have the option to do so. That is another part of it. Of course another part is unlocking these outer-suburban areas. These precinct plans are in places such as Clyde North, with the part 2 of the Cardinia Creek South precinct structure plan, one of many to come in the south-east, as with other regions. They are unlocking land in regional Victoria and unlocking land in some of our best serviced parts of metropolitan Melbourne with new activity centres, 50 activity centres across metro Melbourne, which are going to provide people with the opportunity to invest or buy a home for themselves in an area where they want to live, whether that be in a great place such as Clyde North or Pakenham, whether that be in a great regional city like Bendigo or Traralgon or, yes, whether that might even be in Camberwell Junction. Some people do want to live there – it is perhaps not my cup of tea, but a lot of people do, and you can well see why when you see how well serviced it is.

Yet we have Liberal members in this place coming in time after time, whether it is about Camberwell, whether it is about Bayside, attacking sensible infill density developments around railway stations and around hubs and attacking projects that will help to transform the housing opportunities for Victorians, such as the Suburban Rail Loop. They come in and they say, ‘Block, block, block,’ because that is all the Liberal Party knows how to do – block, block and block.

Joe McCracken interjected.

Michael GALEA: I will take you up on that, Mr McCracken. Unlike those opposite who block, we are investing in building blocks. That is what this Labor government is doing. Whilst you block all housing, we are investing in outer-suburban building blocks. We are investing in those activity centres as well. Whether you want to live in the inner city, in the outer suburbs or in the regions, you should have that option, and you should not on account of your age be discriminated against and locked out of the housing market. I think that is something that we should all believe in. I know some members opposite – perhaps a bit more quietly these days – do in fact support that. If only they would speak up to their colleagues, such as the strange Mr Newbury, who is looking through hotel windows. If only they would stand up for millennial Victorians, for generation Z Victorians, and not just bow in fealty to the great Mr Newbury and his bizarre antics outside hotels in Brighton –

Renee Heath: On a point of order, Acting President, Mr Galea just made a terrible statement about Mr Newbury, who is not in here, and I would like him to withdraw his statement.

The ACTING PRESIDENT (Jacinta Ermacora): Do you wish to respond to the point of order?

Michael GALEA: I am more than happy to withdraw saying that Mr Newbury was creepily looking through hotel windows.

The ACTING PRESIDENT (Jacinta Ermacora): Thank you.

Michael GALEA: As I said, this is but one very important part of the government’s response. It is not the only part. It is not the only solution. Frankly, if I were standing here saying that in this housing situation the government’s sole response is going to be this bill, the claims of the opposition would be fair. It would be fair for them to say, ‘You’re not doing enough,’ but we are doing so many things. And with each of these things, when we turn around, what do we find? The opposition saying, ‘No. No, don’t do that. Yes, we do support density, but just not in my backyard – not in Camberwell, not in Brighton, not in these places that already have the infrastructure and services. Don’t do it this way.’ By saying that, what you are saying to the people of Melbourne and to the future home owners – as I said, those millennials and gen Zs – is, ‘Yeah, sure, you can buy a house. You can buy in the outer suburbs.’ Never mind that the Liberals have not given any indication of what plans they have to provide the jobs, services or transport in those outer suburbs while this government are continuing to deliver the roads, the public transport upgrades, the hospitals, the hospital upgrades, the 100 new schools across the state and the new kindergartens, ambulance stations and police stations. I can give you countless examples of all of those just in the suburb of Clyde North. We are doing that, and we are doing so in a sensible manner. And by unlocking further land in those outer suburbs at the same time as we are unlocking those activity centres, we are saying to Victorians, ‘We actually think you deserve the respect of being able to choose where you wish to live.’

There are some fantastic opportunities for people in the outer suburbs of Melbourne. I am very proud to represent a region that is very dynamic, that is growing, that has great culture and that has great community, but we need to grow at a more sustainable rate, and if you talk to people in the outer suburbs, they will say the exact same thing to you. For all the investment that this government is making – and again I will use the outer south-east as an example, because I do spend, along with Mr Tarlamis, a lot of time working in that area – in new schools, buses, hospitals, roads, police stations and ambulance stations, we are still running just to keep pace with where we are. It is not sustainable for us to be doing this for ever and ever.

Evan Mulholland interjected.

Michael GALEA: That is why, Mr Mullholand, it is so important that we are investing at the same time as unlocking that growth and at the same time as investing in activity centres in the middle suburbs – in places like Clayton, in places like Box Hill and in places like Glen Waverley. Those opposite will come into this place and shout down any sort of suggestion of those inner and middle suburbs taking on any more density. They are all fine with talking about it in hypotheticals and theories; as soon as it comes to their backyard, it is no, no, no. At least the good Dr Bach had the courage to stand by his convictions and stand up in this place and call out those in the Liberal Party who were holding you back.

Evan Mulholland interjected.

Michael GALEA: You may not do it, Mr Mulholland, but Dr Bach had the good sense of character to call out his own party when they were saying, ‘No, let’s not give those opportunities to young people.’ To all these millennial MPs in this place from the Liberal Party saying this to those people, you are effectively selling out those millennials and generation Z Victorians that deserve the same opportunities that others in this place have had – that many of us here in this place have had. You are saying to them, ‘You do not deserve a fair go. You do not deserve the chance to aspire,’ and that is a disgrace, frankly.

The situation that we are in – the housing situation here in Victoria – is replicated in every state and territory across this nation. It is replicated in New Zealand, in most of Europe and in North America. This is not a problem that is unique to Victoria. But the government is doing everything in its power to fix the housing crisis and to provide those opportunities for aspirational working young Victorians, because that is what a good government does. It does not carp from the sides and then do everything in its power to block any measures to fix an issue. It actually works on good policy, good development and getting things done for the people, as it is elected to do. And that is what the Allan Labor government does in Victoria. That is the leadership that we have from the Minister for Planning Sonya Kilkenny, that is the leadership we have from the Premier Jacinta Allan and that is the leadership that we see entirely lacking from those opposite, especially since the departure of the good Dr Bach.

Evan Mulholland interjected.

Michael GALEA: Yes, here we go indeed, Mr Mulholland, because at least Dr Bach had the courage to say that he supports the aspirations of young Victorians. There was a time when the Liberal Party claimed to stand for aspiration. They claimed to stand for that. I know in other states Liberals look at those down here and say, ‘What on earth are you doing?’ I know from talking to other colleagues and indeed members of the New South Wales Liberal Party just last week that they were astonished that the Victorian Liberals – well, they are astonished by many things about the Victorian Liberals, let us be honest – continue to oppose the Suburban Rail Loop. I was in Sydney last week, and I did have the chance to ride on the fantastic new Sydney Metro, a very good project.

Members interjecting.

Michael GALEA: Indeed – I will take you up on that, Mr Mulholland – it was a Liberal government that implemented that project. Labor took it at the end and delivered it successfully, but it was for the most part a Liberal state government project, because in New South Wales even the New South Wales Liberal Party supports public transport projects. They may have tried to ruin the Metro Tunnel here by routing it halfway to Fishermans Bend and back. They may still continue to oppose the Suburban Rail Loop. The Liberals in New South Wales do not understand why you are continuing to oppose this –

Evan Mulholland: On a point of order, Acting President, on relevance, we seem to have strayed from the intent of the bill. I could find nothing in the bill itself about public transport, so I would ask you to bring the member to order.

The ACTING PRESIDENT (Jacinta Ermacora): I ask Mr Galea to return to the bill.

Michael GALEA: I will just say that the fact that Mr Mulholland refers to the Suburban Rail Loop as just a public transport project shows exactly their short-sightedness on what is fundamentally a housing project. It is a railway and it is a housing project. We are here to talk about housing. The fact that they cannot see it says everything about the lack of vision that that party has for our state – no vision, no plans, just carping from the sidelines at a government that is continuing to do everything it can with a Premier who is showing leadership and actually delivering outcomes for Victorians. We saw it with the level crossings; we have seen it with the growth area infrastructure. We are continuing to do the work.

In this bill we are making it one little bit easier for Victorians to own their own home. That is something that I would have thought even the Liberal Party would support, but apparently not. Apparently we are the only voice in this chamber – and perhaps Mr Limbrick as well – standing up for Victorians to have that aspirational opportunity to build or buy their own home. It is a great shame that, with the Victorian Liberal Party across there, we see the continued blocking, the continued lack of vision and the continued carping from the sidelines while this government gets on and delivers for all Victorians. I do commend this bill to the house, and I look forward to further contributions.

Trung LUU (Western Metropolitan) (15:32): I rise to speak on the Duties Amendment (More Homes) Bill 2024. While this bill only provides a short-term solution to a long-term issue, the actuality is there is a housing crisis and Victorians are doing it tough. This bill falls short of actually addressing the issue at hand. The narrow focus on stamp duty concession for 12 months for off-the-plan purchases is a limited, ineffective and ultimately inadequate solution to the problem that continues to plague our housing market. Victoria needs stamp duty relief across the board, not just on units in skyscrapers for just 12 months.

This bill proposes a significant reduction in stamp duty for off-the-plan properties, primarily for apartments and units. While such measures may offer temporary relief to some buyers, the bill fails to address the structural issues that underpin the crisis we are facing in the Victorian housing market. The government proposal essentially aims to encourage more speculation purchases to fix our own housing debacle. What this bill seeks to do is not a sustainable solution to the housing crisis. Reducing stamp duty on off-the-plan purchases might reduce some immediate costs but still does not guarantee that these properties will provide long-term value for the buyers or contribute meaningfully to solve our housing supply issues. The reality of construction costs, interest rates and market conditions means risk remains high for those entering the off-the-plan market.

Secondly, the bill fails to consider the broader need of the Victorian population. The reduction of stamp duty applies exclusively to off-the-plan apartments, units and townhouses. While these types of properties may suit some buyers, they do not suit or are not a desired option for many growing families. This bill simply fails to meet the needs of growing families who require access to outdoor space, gardens and larger living areas. There is a real danger in the government’s approach to push families in financial difficulty towards smaller, more compact living arrangements in high-density developments, which is a driving cause of overcrowding that reduces quality of life for those who need space for children, pets and outdoor activities. This bill does nothing to stimulate the supply of house-sized homes, places with space for families to grow and kids to play. It fails to acknowledge that for many Victorians apartment living is not an acceptable substitute for a traditional family home, which we have all grown up knowing in recent years. There are clear gaps between the government’s focus on units and the reality of what Victorian families need regarding housing.

This bill fails to address the deeper structural issues facing the construction industry, such as high land prices, labour shortages and regulatory hurdles. Slashing stamp duty alone will not solve these problems. If the government was truly committed to addressing the housing crisis, it would take a more comprehensive approach. A general reduction of stamp duty across the board, not just for off-the-plan purchases, would help all buyers, whether they are first home buyers who want to upsize or investors.

Furthermore, the government should consider broader reform of the Victorian property tax system, which currently includes 27 different taxes that place significant burdens on developers, homebuyers and property owners. To name a few: land tax, which has more than doubled recently; rent tax, which burdens small land owners and those with modest property investments; municipality and industrial landfill levies; bin taxes; and it goes on. To truly address this housing crisis, the government needs to think beyond short-term measures like a stamp duty reduction for only 12 months. A holistic approach is needed, with comprehensive stamp duty reform for all property transactions, not just for off-the-plan purchases.

Taxes never make homes more affordable; they only make them more expensive. The Allan Labor government must cut the red tape that holds us back and release unutilised Crown land for urban planning reform. The government must make more land available for housing development, streamline planning processes to encourage sustainable, affordable housing options and encourage investment in affordable housing for low- and middle-income families, including the construction of homes on lots that cater for the needs of growing families with family-sized homes with real backyards. Instead of relying on speculative off-the-plan sales, the government should incentivise local developers to build high-quality, community-focused, sustainable housing that meets environmental measures and the long-term needs of all Victorians.

In conclusion, while the Duties Amendment (More Homes) Bill 2024 may offer temporary financial relief, it fails to address the underlying issue that continues to hinder the housing market in Victoria by focusing narrowly on off-the-plan sales and high-density property developments and does not provide stamp duty relief for families wanting to buy a house. While we do not oppose this bill, which offers immediate relief for those trying to enter the property market, it fails to address the deeper issue at hand which all Victorians are facing. The fact that Victoria has the highest property taxes in the country does not help. Under this Labor government, this is the real driver of the housing crisis we are facing.

Jacinta ERMACORA (Western Victoria) (15:39): The Duties Amendment (More Homes) Bill 2024 introduces the stamp duty concession for off-the-plan homes that was announced by the Premier on 21 October this year. The bill is an important part of a comprehensive suite of actions by the Allan Labor government to address the housing shortage, and the bill for 2024 introduces a new temporary concession. Purchasers will be able to deduct all the costs of construction from the sale price when calculating how much stamp duty they owe. This will encourage more off-the-plan purchases for apartments and townhouses. Off-the-plan developments are an important part of the housing market. They provide purchasers with an opportunity to buy a brand new home, often with smaller deposits and longer timeframes for settlement. They also provide greater certainty for developers to move ahead with new builds, knowing that there are purchasers already signed up. Encouraging a steady supply of new housing is vital for our regional economy and our Victorian economy. The changes proposed in this bill will encourage investment and support the continued supply of new housing. It will provide an incentive for investors and others who are not eligible for existing concessions. The move responds to industry feedback that the current interest rate burden has slowed sales and stopped developments from getting underway. With a concession reducing up-front costs for more buyers, developers can look forward to more pre-sale success, which will help meet finance requirements faster and start the construction of new homes sooner. Bringing more projects to market sooner will boost housing supply, support the construction sector and grow the amount of housing available for rent. Overall it is about supply.

This bill will support anyone buying an apartment, unit or townhouse off the plan. Anyone can claim the concession, not just first home buyers and owner-occupiers, which is the current situation. Thresholds will be removed so the concession will be available for apartments, units and townhouses of any value. The 12-month extended concession applies from 21 October, and it will allow 100 per cent deduction of outstanding construction and refurbishment costs when determining how much stamp duty is owed. The amount you save depends on how much construction has occurred at the time you enter into the contract. Generally someone buying an apartment off the plan is likely to pay about a quarter of the stamp duty they would pay without the off-the-plan concession. The concession could mean Victorians might pay around $28,000 less stamp duty on a $620,000 apartment, for example, with duty slashed from around $32,000 to about $4000. The concession applies to apartments, units or townhouses in a strata subdivision, meaning they retain common property such as a driveway or a shared hallway. Properties that are not part of a strata subdivision, such as a house and land package, are not eligible, but existing concessions for first home buyers and owner-occupiers will apply in that category. This is good for Victorians broadly and specifically for those considering going into townhouses and apartments. Victorians are currently experiencing high rates of cost-of-living pressure, and this amendment to the duties payable will alleviate that pressure and boost housing construction. In particular it will provide a boost to units, apartments and townhouses.

I now want to add some of the broader context in which this initiative is occurring. The government has invested a landmark $6.3 billion in the Big Housing Build and the Regional Housing Fund, ensuring more social and affordable housing in Victoria. More than 10,000 homes are underway or complete, and more than 5000 Victorians have already moved into their new homes. We know the demand for social and affordable housing and housing in general reflects the broader housing market and the cost-of-living pressures being experienced across the state.

In Warrnambool and south-west Victoria the government has already completed 38 new homes, and the construction of a further 85 is underway. On Mortlake Road in Warrnambool the Salvation Army is preparing to construct a 21-unit development as part of Victoria’s Big Housing Build. We are also putting significant focus on reducing vacant properties across Victoria, with a 30 per cent reduction in vacancy rates. This represents 1111 properties from 30 June 2023 to 31 July this year. Properties are being tenanted as soon as possible. This includes undertaking the necessary inspections, safety checks and repairs in line with Residential Tenancies Act 1997 compliance. As a result, newly tenanted properties are in good condition, ensuring comfortable living with tenant satisfaction and retention.

There are currently 11 vacant properties in the Warrnambool local government area. Of these, eight are being redeveloped – and these are public housing properties – as part of the Regional Housing Fund to provide 17 new dwellings. One requires extensive works to be undertaken to return the property to a tenantable standard, and the remainder are being made available for letting. It is a significant milestone that the Allan Labor government is redeveloping more end-of-life housing stock than ever before, and this is thanks to recent investments from the state and Commonwealth governments, including the housing statement, the Regional Housing Fund and the social housing accelerator program.

I would like to draw specific attention to the work done by Women’s Housing Ltd, a specialist housing provider with a mission to advocate on the housing needs –

Richard Welch: On a point of order, Acting President, I fail to see what this has to do with stamp duty exemptions.

Jacinta ERMACORA: Further to the point of order, Acting President, my debate is about the broader context in which this bill sits around our housing initiatives, and debate has included that on both sides.

The ACTING PRESIDENT (Michael Galea): It has been a very free flowing debate, I can say firsthand, but I will ask Ms Ermacora to return the bill.

Jacinta ERMACORA: I will definitely reiterate that regional Victoria is very, very relevant to this bill and that all of the housing initiatives that are in place and being put in place are relevant to the broader story around housing in Victoria.

In relation to Women’s Housing Ltd, funded under the Big Housing Build by the Allan Labor government in 2019, in Portland there have been 31 dwellings forecast to be completed this month, with another 20 due for completion in June 2025. In Hamilton seven homes have been completed with an additional nine homes being completed in November. In Camperdown construction is well underway, with 13 homes due for completion in March 2025. Warrnambool has successfully completed eight homes in a very tight market. Women’s Housing Ltd is of course working actively across the whole of Victoria, and I commend them for the work they are continuing to do to contribute to more housing stock for women and children.

Finally, before I close, the regional worker housing fund is another suite within the picture of this particular bill, and in Warrnambool recently we announced $5.29 million for 14 cabins to be constructed in partnership with Warrnambool City Council and a range of businesses in the district to provide key worker housing.

All of these initiatives, including the specific initiative of this bill, are being implemented by the Allan Labor government directly to address the challenges in housing that are faced by this entire nation, and south-west Victoria is no exception. Alleviating demand for key worker accommodation, supporting vulnerable women, building more government-owned homes and supporting vulnerable members of the community into housing is a priority of this government, and I fully endorse this bill.

Richard WELCH (North-Eastern Metropolitan) (15:50): You will be pleased to know I will have a short contribution on this bill. Honestly, the way those opposite speak you would think that this was some sort of revolutionary thing that is being done to transform housing in this state. What you are really doing is championing the fact that you are reversing something you opposed in 2017. It is basically a capitulation. It is a capitulation like in every other element of your housing policy over the last 12 months. Capitulation after capitulation as your targets are missed, as builders go broke under your watch, as you add 29 taxes, as your precinct plans fall into a shambles and stumble around, as you take levies from the peri-urban areas and then do not invest back in infrastructure – none of what you have done here addresses the core issues in any meaningful way.

To give this a sense of scale, this is an initiative that is going to cost the government $55 million. So let us just understand that in context: the government takes $8.52 billion in stamp duty, it takes $6.5 billion in land tax and it has taken $1.2 billion from the COVID levy, so with the weight of $8.52 billion from stamp duty and the weight of $6.5 billion from land tax and $1.2 billion from the COVID levy, $55 million on this is going to suddenly turn around the housing crisis. The crisis that you created you are going to turn around with $55 million for one year. That is why the amount of time expended by those opposite on talking about everything except the bill and the actual material benefits of the bill is quite extraordinary. $55 million for some individuals will actually help tweak up demand because it does help affordability, and we do have an affordability problem. But in terms of the core economic problem, which is supply, what does $55 million do? It does nothing to address the systemic problem that you have got in that you have done everything in all your policies in the last 10 years to destroy supply, to destroy the incentive for investment, to destroy the industry by competing with the housing industry with Big Build projects and diverting capital and effort and investment to those projects, to push up prices and to not release more land in regions.

And typical of the whole thing, your plan is just a continuation of your no choice and no voice, because again you have only put this stunning $55 million policy on flats – on new flats, not on houses and not on homes, because for some reason the Victorian Labor government hates people having homes. It only wants people in flats. It is reinterpreting the Australian dream as having a two-bedroom flat on the 43rd storey of a high-rise building as somehow solving a problem. It is not a home really; they are flats. It is not where you raise families. People do not want them and yet this scattergun approach that we have seen in the last six months where you change a regulation here, you throw an activity precinct there, you override local amenity here, you suddenly say that you are going to change stuff – there is no systematic approach to this at all, it is just a series of throwing mud at a wall, hoping some of it sticks and hoping that some of it actually looks like a policy so that you can get another press release out in time for the news cycle.

This represents a $55 million policy. We will support it; we will totally support it, but if you had a set of scales and on one side you had what you had done to disincentivise supply, with taxes after taxes after taxes, and you put on the other side of the scale a slight concession on stamp duty, it goes nowhere near levelling up the scales at all. So it is not going to solve the problem. We are very happy to see a reduction in tax – that is a fantastic thing. I commend the amendment which will make it permanent. I cannot understand why this does not apply to standalone homes. Why doesn’t this exemption apply to standalone homes? Why aren’t people pursuing the Australian dream of equal value? Why is it only people you want to lock up in dogboxes in high-density urban ghettos that this applies to? It is all because your policy is very wrongheaded indeed.

I will not go on much longer, because Mr Davis, Mr Mulholland and Dr Heath all made excellent contributions in terms of how it does not address the systemic problems. It does not address supply. It does nothing to incentivise the industry to really turn around their level of investment when they are confronted with the headwinds of land tax in Victoria. I will conclude there.

Tom McINTOSH (Eastern Victoria) (15:56): It is very interesting to follow on from that contribution, because that reveals a lot about how the Liberals view housing and about what their fundamental beliefs are on housing, whereas this side sees the fundamental purpose of housing as being somewhere for someone to be able to build their life out of; to be able to go every day to a good job with fair pay and conditions; to be able to educate themselves and their family and get the training and the skills they need to continue to be a productive worker within our state, supporting our state’s economy; and to be able to get access to good-quality health care via good-quality infrastructure, connecting people with that, all within a sustainable local environment. This is the sort of holistic approach to housing that the Allan Labor government and Labor governments before it have taken to ensure that people not only have access to homes but have access to communities. Mr Welch wanted to try and boil all that down by talking about people living in dogboxes. He may be wanting to refer to the four years those opposite last had in power when there was no concern for quality, and I will come back to talk about the incredible lengths this side is going to to ensure quality and livability of homes for Victorians.

Those opposite obviously have a fundamental disdain for people living in different ways, much like they do socially with people living in different ways. If Victorians do not live according to the 1950s model of what the Liberal Party see as the way Victorians should live their lives, then they are fundamentally opposed to it. We see that across a range of social issues in this state, and Victorians do not like it. What we see out of the policies that members of the government have spoken to today and I will go through as I make my contribution is that they are about ensuring there are housing options for all Victorians wherever they are at in their lives, depending on their age, their family situation, their needs. It is about ensuring all Victorians have access to good-quality affordable housing.

I will come back to some other comments that we have heard from those opposite, but through this legislation we will see concessions for off-the-plan purchases of apartments, townhouses and units, which will see Victorian home purchasers save tens of thousands of dollars. As I said before, it is all a part of these many policies that the Allan Labor government is bringing to see more quality and affordable housing here in Victoria – the 50 new activity centres around our train and tram zones, with our high-frequency trains. The fact is there has been investment in metro. There has been investment in unlocking the capacity of our train network and in building those trains right here in Victoria for Victorians, ensuring that people can get jobs near these centres and that people can travel on these trains through the 50 new and upgraded train stations. Whether people are on public transport or are in their cars, with the 84 level crossings that we have already seen removed, it is all part of ensuring people can live where they want to live but have the networks and services to do so in a way that gives them the best quality of life possible. The upgrades to services, to our schools and kinders – 70 upgrades near these activity centres – ensure that the entire family, everyone living in that home, can access what they need to where they want to.

Another example of the Liberal Party’s disdain for people having a roof over their head was shown last sitting week in the short-stay contribution debate. The Mornington Peninsula has high levels of short-stay accommodation, and it has become increasingly difficult for locals, particularly families, to be able to get a roof over their heads affordably so that they can stay within their communities. The short-stay levy, the 7.5 per cent levy, has been put in place to ensure that we can have more money to flow into social housing, new construction and maintenance.

Mr Welch made a comment before that this government has wasted money investing in the $5 billion Big Build, and I will come to the extra $1 billion for regional housing shortly, but again, it is another glimpse into the mentality of the Liberals that money invested in social housing is seen as a waste. Money invested in social housing, ensuring that people have a roof over their heads and that families are safe, is a critically important investment that this side will always stand by and work to deliver more of. The short-stay levy is a way of helping to deliver that, but it is also a way of helping to free up more family homes. We know that what those opposite said as the bill went through last week was that they will repeal it. They do not want to see people in their homes, because to them that is not the way they view housing. It is a very, very different mentality on that side. We have a number of other policies that are going to see more homes built and more Victorians in these homes, such as getting two homes onto one block, whether that is through our small second homes or the granny flats, speeding up the time it takes for approvals to be able to subdivide and get a second home and get more people living where they want to live.

I touched on before the $5 billion of investment – we have got the Minister for Housing here – and the $1 billion extra investment in regional social housing. I think it reflects the Liberals’ lack of understanding of the depth of need for housing. The fact that we are doing work within inner Melbourne, in middle Melbourne and in the regions means that we are getting people across the board into homes. We are going to have 10 years of greenfield sites coming online, the longest ever pipeline, with 27 additional greenfields. Having this continuity and having this longevity to give surety of investment will see that pipeline come and will see families in homes, because it is not about picking one or the other, as Mr Welch was saying before; it is about ensuring that people can live where they want to live affordably but also in good-quality homes. We know that with what those opposite did in their time, they would be lucky if many of them were left standing. They would be lucky if many of them were left standing from the quality of the build. Having worked in construction for 10 years, I can tell you that you can tell what is a good-quality build, what is a sound investment, what will stand the test of time and what is absolute garbage that is going to see high energy bills, is going to see low quality of life, is going to see people feeling the heat and the cold. Victorians would not need to be spending their income on electricity or other energy bills if you just get that building right from the start.

The government is working to unlock more land, including through VicTrack, continuing another of the many, many policies to make more housing become available. And Minister Tierney has recently announced regional worker accommodation. This regional worker accommodation is seeing workers able to get to where they need to be, around health services in regional Victoria. This $150 million investment is making sure that that housing is available where it is needed and when it is needed. The knock-on effects of that are incredible, because when you talk to people in local communities about a variety of services, whether it is health care, whether it is child care, whether it is aged care, ensuring that those workers are there to deliver the services that are required, the services needed, is critically important to regional communities, because if you are living in a regional community and you do not have those workforces there, then you are in real trouble. We know that those opposite, particularly under the Kennett era, ripped the guts out of regional communities from an infrastructure perspective, so we have put that infrastructure back in. But the worker accommodation has ensured that not only is the infrastructure there but we have also got the workforce there, because there is nothing as crushing as thinking that there is not the workforce within that infrastructure to support the local community. That is where the investment we are making in child care and kinder, in primary and high school education is so important. We are ensuring that parents can be in the workforce and support the local community.

I do want to touch on a motion I moved last week and just note how the lead speaker on the other side, Mr Mulholland, has been sold out by his Liberal colleagues. Mr Mulholland has made some good contributions in the past. There have been some good terms around here. I cannot recall them off the top of my head, but the ‘noalition’ is I think one that we are all very familiar with. They do not want to get behind policies that will see more people getting homes. They want to use political partisanship to pointscore on so many policies that the Allan Labor government is bringing to Victorians to deliver more quality affordable housing. Each time they are just trying for their political partisanship to take a score on the way through – ‘This won’t work, that won’t work, that’s no good, this isn’t any good’ – when at the end of the day they will probably support it, they will let it go through. There will be some things like short-stay they will want to come back and repeal if they get in. We know that they will cut jobs, we know that they will cut services, we know that it will be nonstop cuts if the Liberals get into power again and we know it is Victorians who will pay through job losses and through loss of services.

The work that this government is doing to create a pipeline of housing through policy after policy, taking a holistic approach to ensure a variety of housing – of sizes and of needs – and connections to public transport, to road infrastructure, to local community parks, to services and to well-paid, good-condition jobs, every one of these policies connects together. It is easy for those opposite to take pot shots, because they do not have the value base to sit down – this is a word they will not comprehend – collectively, to sit down and identify what it is they believe in and what it is they want to say to the Victorian people that they will bring and offer. They are unable to do it. It is this side that identifies needs, identifies those values and brings the policy to deliver housing to Victorians.

Motion agreed to.

Read second time.

Committed.

Committee

Clause 1 (16:12)

I might just roll through a bunch of questions on clause 1. Minister, why didn’t the government consider a value cap as part of this proposal?

Thank you, Mr Mulholland, for your question and your interest in this. One of the things that we have sought to do in developing and delivering this particular bill and the actions that underpin it is to make sure that we can provide that supercharged process for pre-sales of apartments, townhouses or units. This is where again we see a spectrum of value that operates across this particular configuration of housing offerings. That is why it is important that we have been able to deliver an off-the-plan concession in the terms that have been outlined by the policy announcement and also as contemplated by this bill. We do want to make sure that we are building more homes all the way around Victoria and that those homes are able to meet the variety of different needs for singles and couples and for families as well. This is where we are again addressing those challenges around poor showings for pre-sales, which are effectively creating delays and putting upward pressure on costs for projects for construction. In seeking to make those projects viable, it is about making sure that we can provide that assistance to people in activating the off-the-plan concession through those contracts entered into on or after 21 October.

Someone technically buying a $6 million apartment or a $5 million apartment in Prahran or somewhere like that, a luxury apartment, would get a concession under the government’s proposal, but a family buying a freestanding home over $750,000 would get no concession at all. Was there any thought or discussion or proposal about expanding the concession or making it fairer?

The rationale for the announcement – and this has been traversed at some length in today’s second-reading debate but also by the Premier, the Treasurer and the Minister for Planning, and I have gone into in some detail since 21 October and the announcement of this policy – is to make sure that we can remove those obstacles that have presented in pre-sale and the pace of pre-sale for apartments, units and townhouses. This is about making sure that the areas where movement of stock is important for the purpose of certainty in development and making sure we can get those developments kickstarted earlier and with more surety and that visibility of a pipeline is about that particular configuration of housing. We know that as the population grows and as density increases it is apartments, units and townhouses that will be the types of housing that meet that need. This is where again the concession as it is set out in the bill will directly achieve these outcomes.

Under this proposed plan, the off-the-plan stamp duty incentive will only be enforced for 12 months. As you would know, developments can take years to scope and get off the ground. In your own portfolio even community or social housing developments will take years to get off the ground, so it is something you would be quite familiar with, Minister. Why didn’t the government consider extending this incentive for a longer period than 12 months?

It is a one-off stimulus, and we have been pretty clear on that in public comment but also in the course of this debate. The current environment – as you yourself have said and as many other of your colleagues have referred to, again in this place, the other place and public discussion – has been really tough for the development sector. The housing statement and the affordability partnership and the work that the Treasurer, the planning minister and a number of other portfolios are doing have been about understanding where those blockages and those congestion points exist, where the pressure exists in the development and delivery of development projects for residential developments and how we can undertake work which alleviates those congestion points.

There are a number of peak bodies that have made their views particularly clear on this subject, and we want to make sure that when we kickstart those residential developments we can do so by encouraging people to get into that pre-sale environment and to make sure that we can see the concessions that have previously applied to investors. Since 2017 we have had that investor framework operate. We will have an existing off-the-plan concession for owner-occupiers and first home buyers that will continue to apply after this 12-month concession ceases, but this concession and the operation of this policy and the legislation is for a 12-month period again to make sure that we can respond to the industry feedback that the current interest rate burden has slowed sales and stopped those developments from getting underway. Mr Mulholland, it may be within your wheelhouse to predict what the Reserve Bank and others might do. It is not within mine, and that is why we have got the 12-month timeframe in place.

Has the government modelled or estimated how many additional homes will be built as a result of this reform?

The concessions are estimated to help support around 3000 property purchases over the next 12 months. As I said, it is about a kickstart stimulus for the purpose of development in pre-sales that will enable that work to get underway, will alleviate congestion points, will ensure that more projects can become viable and will also provide certainty to purchasers who can enter into those contracts. Generally someone buying an apartment off the plan is likely to pay about a quarter of the stamp duty that they would pay without the off-the-plan concession. I will give you a quick example, if I may. If there is someone using this concession who buys off the plan before any construction work starts, they could pay around $28,000 less stamp duty on a $620,000 apartment – that is not quite the $6 million apartment that you referred to there – so duty will be slashed also from $32,000 to around $4000. So again, it is that kind of example which will see more developments get off the ground more quickly, and that then benefits people who are buying apartments, units or townhouses, including first home buyers, and we have had, as you would be aware, a range of initiatives including the homebuyers equity fund, the first home owner grants and other support for first home owners. This is then about making sure that in this particular species of stock, namely townhouses, units or apartments, we have got that stimulus in place to make sure that over the next 12 months we can provide that certainty and bring additional stock online.

And just to get it on the record, what is the anticipated cost to the budget of this reform?

The estimated revenue impact of the concession is about $54.7 million from 2024–25 to 2027–28. The full cost of the concession is actually spread over time because we have got a lag between contract signing – so anytime for the 12 months after 21 October – and settlement. Settlement is likely to extend beyond 2027–28, for example. So that is where again we want to make sure that we are continuing to understand what the estimated impact is, and we will continue to work on that as the year progresses.

The government is lifting the eligibility requirements for this incentive, meaning investors, both domestic and foreign, as well as homebuyers can have stamp duty cleared or reduced. What do you anticipate the split will be between investors, both domestic and foreign, and homebuyers?

The Department of Treasury and Finance has estimated that around 3000 taxpayers will benefit from that 12-month stimulus from 21 October, but there has not actually been a split that has been modelled by the type of taxpayer. Again, this is about providing more homes, so the split of taxpayer is then something which is of secondary relevance to what it is that we are seeking to do and what the rationale is that underpins this bill.

But some will technically not be taxpayers if they are foreign investors – some. If the government has not done the modelling, what would the minister say the chief objective of the bill is? Is it a policy designed to help Victorians purchase homes or is it about incentivising property development?

Thanks, Mr Mulholland, for a really useful question. But I do just want to correct you: foreign investment does still pay tax.

Evan Mulholland interjected.

Harriet SHING: You say ‘some tax’; foreign investment pays tax on property, such as property contemplated by the pre-sales which are supercharged by this particular bill and by the policy announcement. So when you talk to what the primary objective is, one is inexorably linked to the other. That affordability and availability have been two of the key challenges around housing supply and what that means for mechanisms that will enable people to find a place to call home. We do know that we are seeing a change in affordability in Melbourne. Some corners of the political discourse will paint this as a change in house values, but it is about affordability – that housing is becoming more affordable. This is indicative of the fact that the work that we are doing through the housing statement, through the changes that have been introduced not just through this bill but through the planning framework and the work that Minister Kilkenny is doing alongside at least four other portfolios, mine included, is having an impact. But this is long-term work that requires a sustained effort, and when we provide this support to enable the construction cost to be deducted from the sale price when calculating how much stamp duty someone owes, this then means that there is a double benefit – not only for developers, who get the benefit of a pre-sale more quickly and with more certainty, but also for the people who are purchasing a unit, a townhouse or an apartment in this period, which enables them to claim the concession. That means we can have those buildings, of any value, form part of what we are doing to incentivise purchase for the purpose of development and bring these additional homes on line.

Seven years ago, dating back to 2017, when the government made these changes to remove the concession that it is now bringing back, the Real Estate Institute of Victoria (REIV) warned that they do not support the removal of off-the-plan concessions for investors and said that that change would reduce the attractiveness of property investment in Victoria, further limiting rental supply at a time when vacancy rates were already tightening. Do you agree that that is what has happened, and does the government regret removing the off-the-plan concessions?

It is a nice attempt at expressing an opinion. I do not intend to do that as it relates to this particular bill, but you have begun by quoting the Real Estate Institute of Victoria. I do just want to take you perhaps to a number of public comments made by the chief executive of the Real Estate Institute of Victoria Kelly Ryan by way of media release on 21 October, the date of the commencement of this policy, entitled ‘REIV welcomes stamp duty cuts for off-the-plan units, apartments and townhouses’. The release reads as follows:

The Real Estate Institute of Victoria (REIV) welcomes the Victorian Government’s plan to offer stamp duty concessions on all new apartments, units and townhouses purchased off-the-plan in Victoria.

In particular, the REIV supports the government’s decision to make concessions uncapped and available to all buyers of off-the-plan strata properties, not just first home buyers.

…

We’re pleased the Allan Government is introducing tax concession measures that seek to incentivise private investment in Victoria’s housing ecosystem …

While we recognise this is a first step –

it goes on to say –

our hope is that these concessions will not only help stimulate development of urgently needed higher density homes across the state, but also establish a clearer pathway for broader stamp duty reform.

That is not within the scope and contemplation of this bill, just to be clear. The release goes on to say:

The REIV has long advocated for tax reforms including a comprehensive review of stamp duty, a burdensome tax that restricts investment and mobility in Victoria’s property market.

…

A strong pipeline of new housing in established areas will pave the way for long term stability in the housing market …

The REIV and the real estate industry will be closely watching the Victorian Government’s announcements relating to its Housing Statement throughout the week.

On that, I also just want to talk briefly to the REIV’s position on rental yields and what that means. It is a topic that I and many other ministers have covered extensively with, for example, Jacob Caine of the REIV, who is very quick to confirm that rental yields are at an all-time high. It is then also, though, in addressing that challenge of affordability and availability, about making sure that we can bring additional stock online, and that includes across the offering of real estate investment and owner-occupier work as well as those purchasers, whether they are first home buyers or people looking to downsize. It is then about providing that greater volume of stock coming onto the market, which we know is going to have, and is already having, an effect on affordability here in Melbourne.

I will ask the question a different way. You quoted the REIV, who said that this change will make housing more affordable. Did the government’s changes seven years ago make housing more unaffordable?

Mr Mulholland, I am here to speak to the bill today. Again, they might be matters that you can speculate on. They will no doubt be matters that you will continue to speculate on, and it is something that I have heard as a quite frequent theme in the course of the contributions made by you and your colleagues. What we know is the work we are doing in a number of different portfolios – the work of the housing statement, tax reform in the form of this stamp duty concession and the work on everything from targets through to a review of the Planning and Environment Act 1987 – is all working. It is long-term work, however. If we are to provide the volume of supply into the market, we need to provide certainty for developers. We need to alleviate the challenges of a complex system, and this is one part of doing exactly that.

I move:

1. Clause 1, line 3, omit “temporary”.

I went over what this amendment does earlier, but it does something very simple – it takes this temporary concession and makes it permanent.

We will not oppose this amendment, and I thank Mr Limbrick for putting it forward. As I said in my contribution earlier on, many in the sector have called for this concession in the past. We both heard from the Property Council of Australia in the stamp duty inquiry we were on, and they were quite keen to see this concession back and did not advocate for any time limit at the time. I think it should be supported if we believe that this policy will do good and if we believe the many in the sector who say that it will not work if it is just for 12 months, that that will not have the intended effect. We certainly do not want to get in the way of an effort to get more people into homes.

As I stated in my contribution earlier, the Greens’ view is that, as proposed in the bill, removing stamp duty for a limited time period is definitely accessible. We have been on the record: we do not like stamp duty. However, the idea of removing it in perpetuity without a corresponding method of taxation to replace that lost revenue – for example, a broad-based land tax – in our view would have too big of an impact on the government’s ability to pay for things that Victorians need. In that vein, we are not able to support this amendment today.

Thanks, Mr Limbrick, for your amendment. We have been really clear on the intent of this stimulus – it is a one-off stimulus. The current environment, as I said earlier in response to a comment from Mr Mulholland, is really challenging. I do not have the ability to prognosticate about where and how interest rates may go such that the current circumstances and the pressures being faced by developers and also by consumers of purchasing and purchasing arrangements would be affected. A 12-month concession will encourage more people to purchase those off-the-plan properties sooner rather than delay purchase. Again, this is about kickstarting residential development and those developments that have been approved but are currently on hold because of a lack of pre-sales. This is about bringing those various pieces together.

It is also about, as I said, responding to that industry feedback, and this is something that the Treasurer and a number of others, including myself, the Minister for Planning, the Minister for Precincts and the Assistant Treasurer, have been part of discussions on. It is about making sure that when we have that existing off-the-plan concession for owner-occupiers and first home buyers continuing after the 12-month concession ceases, it will be off the back of this stimulus which applies more broadly. The government will not be supporting your amendment.

Council divided on amendment:

Ayes (15): Melina Bath, Gaelle Broad, Georgie Crozier, David Davis, Moira Deeming, Renee Heath, Ann-Marie Hermans, David Limbrick, Wendy Lovell, Trung Luu, Bev McArthur, Joe McCracken, Evan Mulholland, Rikkie-Lee Tyrrell, Richard Welch

Noes (20): Ryan Batchelor, John Berger, Lizzie Blandthorn, Katherine Copsey, Enver Erdogan, Jacinta Ermacora, David Ettershank, Michael Galea, Shaun Leane, Sarah Mansfield, Tom McIntosh, Rachel Payne, Aiv Puglielli, Georgie Purcell, Harriet Shing, Ingrid Stitt, Jaclyn Symes, Lee Tarlamis, Gayle Tierney, Sheena Watt

Amendment negatived.

Before we move off clause 1 –

Harriet SHING: Are you going to be brief so we do not –

David DAVIS: I will be very brief. I will do this in a minute or so. I want to understand whether this applies to developments that relate to refurbishment of off-the-plan. I am going to read something. This is a very interesting statement from 10 November 1994, first Kennett ministry, Alan Stockdale –

Harriet SHING: Most people weren’t born then, David.

David DAVIS: No, it is very relevant to this bill. This is talking about a new act and tax provisions. Another amendment clarifies that the stamp duty exemption for off-the-plan sales applies to refurbishment of existing buildings as well as new buildings. Mr Stockdale said that:

Some doubt has existed as to the practice of the State Revenue Office in allowing concession in the case of the refurbishment and conversion to strata title units of existing buildings. The amendment will clarify the application of the concession to transfers of real property in those cases. The terms of the amendment have been structured to prevent the concession being exploited as a device for the avoidance …

But then he went on to say that even in the constrained budget position of the state these reforms showed the burden of state taxes on people and businesses can be reduced. My point here is: does the exemption that is proposed here for just one year apply to refurbishments?

Thanks, Mr Davis, for your very brief question. The concession will enable buyers to deduct 100 per cent of the construction or refurbishment costs incurred on or after the contract date when determining how much stamp duty is owed, and that is again something that has been stated repeatedly in this place and in the public domain by way of release of the policy.

I just note that under the Kennett government it was a permanent change; under this government it is a single year.

I am going to have the last word on this one. There were lots of permanent changes under the former Premier Jeffrey Kennett and thankfully not all of them were permanent, and that is why we continue to make Victoria a place where people do have an opportunity to access a home and we do have more homes and more opportunity as a result.

I should just say that affordability of homes was much greater under the Kennett government than it is under this government.

Clause agreed to; clause 2 agreed to.

Clause 3 (16:43)

I move:

1. Clause 3, after line 14 insert –

“(ba) the transferor is a person other than the Crown, an agent of the Crown, a Minister of the Crown or a public entity; and

(bb) within the 3 years immediately preceding the transfer, the dutiable property was not –

(i) unalienated land of the Crown; or

(ii) an interest in land owned by the Crown, an agent of the Crown, a Minister of the Crown or a public entity; and”.

2. Clause 3, after line 27 insert –

“public entity has the meaning given by section 5 of the Public Administration Act 2004;”.

As foreshadowed in my contribution earlier, the effect of these amendments is that property on land that is public land or was public land in the last three years would not be eligible for the concession, effectively incentivising that public land remains public land, and if you are going to build housing on it it should be public housing. In order to receive a concessional rate of duty the land in question must not be Crown land owned by the state or Commonwealth government or freehold land owned by the Victorian government, Victorian government agencies or Victorian government departments or land that has been in the three years prior to the dutiable transaction public land remaining public land.

Thanks, Mr Puglielli, for your amendment. Unsurprisingly, the government will not be supporting this amendment. We do support the sale of land owned by the government in certain circumstances, including where that land can be put to better use; for example, in providing, amongst other things, cases for housing. The amendment would, if carried through to its logical conclusion, in fact limit the effect of the bill in boosting supply of housing, particularly for the sorts of configurations of homes – units apartments and townhouses – which are geared very squarely to providing more availability across the state. As you yourself have noted in the challenges around finding affordable housing, this is something which drives the objectives of this bill.

The Liberals and Nationals opposition will be opposing this amendment.

The Libertarian Party will also be opposing this amendment. I know of many cases within South-East Metro where councils and other government bodies are selling land to be used as housing, and I do not see why people should have to pay extra tax because a council decided to consolidate two kindergartens into one and is selling one of the kindergarten sites for an apartment block. That does not seem very fair to me, so I will be opposing this amendment.

Council divided on amendments:

Ayes (3): Katherine Copsey, Sarah Mansfield, Aiv Puglielli

Noes (32): Ryan Batchelor, Melina Bath, John Berger, Lizzie Blandthorn, Gaelle Broad, Georgie Crozier, David Davis, Moira Deeming, Enver Erdogan, Jacinta Ermacora, David Ettershank, Michael Galea, Renee Heath, Ann-Marie Hermans, Shaun Leane, David Limbrick, Wendy Lovell, Trung Luu, Bev McArthur, Joe McCracken, Tom McIntosh, Evan Mulholland, Rachel Payne, Georgie Purcell, Harriet Shing, Ingrid Stitt, Jaclyn Symes, Lee Tarlamis, Gayle Tierney, Rikkie-Lee Tyrrell, Sheena Watt, Richard Welch

Amendments negatived.

I move:

1. Clause 3, line 18, omit “2025.” and insert “2025; and”.

2. Clause 3, after line 18 insert –

“(d) the transfer meets all the requirements to receive a concessional rate of duty under section 57J other than the requirement that the dutiable value of the dutiable property is not more than $550 000.”.

In speaking to this amendment, as it stands Labor’s bill would allow anyone buying an eligible property off the plan to claim this concession, but the benefits of this concession in our view should not flow to companies, trusts and investors, including overseas investors as was foreshadowed earlier. We should not be, in our view, providing stamp duty discounts for property investors so they can buy up new apartments to add to their property portfolio, building their wealth, which is why we have drafted this amendment so that this concession prioritises first home buyers and owner-occupiers. This amendment would mean that the concession would apply to all owner-occupiers or transferees who satisfy principal-place-of-residence requirements – for example, first home buyers, downsizers, divorcees, single parents and people moving house. It gives first home buyers and owner-occupiers an advantage rather than giving concessions to property investors, effectively taking what was proposed under the bill as is but ensuring that it is for first home buyers and owner-occupiers.

Mr Puglielli, the government will not be supporting this amendment. Part of the intention of the bill is in fact to get more projects off the ground and to speed up those pre-sales that have not made projects viable because they have not yet been acquitted by way of a contract. We want to therefore make sure that we are providing that stamp duty concession to investors as well as boosting the investor market. Being able to help to get more homes built will also help both homebuyers and renters. We know that where we have more affordability it is because of, amongst other things, availability. This is squarely intended to deliver on the latter.

The Libertarian Party will not be supporting this amendment. This one is a bit mystifying to me. The Libertarian Party wants more rentals on the market, and the Greens do not for some reason, but rentals require an investor, and removing investors from the qualifications for the concessions does not make any sense at all to me.

The Liberals and Nationals will not be supporting this amendment. As I said in my contribution, for the Greens to claim they support renters while not supporting the investors that put a roof over the heads of those renters is a bit gobsmacking. In a perfect Greens utopia those investors would not be able to receive concessions, so they would have to invest out of the goodness of their hearts and then cop a rent freeze as well. In the Greens utopia it would be no concessions but lots of taxes and lots of rent freezes for the people that, out of the goodness of their hearts, put a roof over the heads of renters. As I said before, it is B-grade economics, and we will not be supporting it.

Council divided on amendments:

Ayes (4): Katherine Copsey, Sarah Mansfield, Aiv Puglielli, Georgie Purcell

Noes (32): Ryan Batchelor, Melina Bath, John Berger, Lizzie Blandthorn, Jeff Bourman, Gaelle Broad, Georgie Crozier, David Davis, Moira Deeming, Enver Erdogan, Jacinta Ermacora, David Ettershank, Michael Galea, Renee Heath, Ann-Marie Hermans, Shaun Leane, David Limbrick, Wendy Lovell, Trung Luu, Bev McArthur, Joe McCracken, Tom McIntosh, Evan Mulholland, Rachel Payne, Harriet Shing, Ingrid Stitt, Jaclyn Symes, Lee Tarlamis, Gayle Tierney, Rikkie-Lee Tyrrell, Sheena Watt, Richard Welch

Amendments negatived.

I move:

1. Clause 3, line 18, omit “2025.” and insert “2025; and”.

2. Clause 3, after line 18 insert –

“(d) the transferee intends for the residential property to be occupied as a person’s principal place of residence.”.

3. Clause 3, after line 24 insert –

“(2A) The concession under subsection (1) is subject to the requirement that a person occupies the land as the person’s principal place of residence for a period of at least 12 months commencing within the 12 month period immediately after the transfer.

(2B) Sections 43B, 43C and 43D apply to this section as if –

(a) a reference to section 43A were a reference to this section; and

(b) a reference to an exemption under section 43A were a reference to a concession under this section.”.

Just speaking to these next amendments now, it is our view that this concession should only apply to homes that will actually be lived in, not vacant homes, holiday homes or Airbnbs, which is why we have drafted this amendment for a residence requirement. Our amendment ensures that in order to be eligible for the concession the property must be used as someone’s principal place of residence for at least the first year. This includes, for example, homes occupied by a family member or renter-occupied. It is a commonsense argument, really. We should be building homes for people to actually live in. Without these amendments we are concerned that the bill would allow investors to buy up and land-bank, effectively keeping properties unoccupied, sitting empty while the investment increases in value in the middle of a housing crisis.

I will be very brief again. The government will not be supporting these amendments, and while it may be the intention of the Greens to effect an amendment along the terms that have been outlined, it would have the effect in practical terms of excluding investors from the extended stamp duty concession. In doing that it would reduce the supply available on the market for rental properties, and it is the supply which is contributing to the challenges of affordability, which we know needs to be addressed as one of a number of policy and legislative and regulatory approaches that are contained in the housing statement and in the raft of announcements that we have made in recent weeks as part of the ongoing work to provide additional homes in the configurations referred to in this bill, namely units, apartments and townhouses.

The Libertarian Party will also be opposing these amendments. I appreciate the concerns about empty houses, but I will note that the state already has a disincentive to leaving properties vacant through the vacant residential property tax. I think there are already disincentives in place, and this is unnecessary.

The Liberals and Nationals will not be supporting these amendments.

We understand the intent of the Greens, both in these amendments and in the previous two. I think they are perhaps examples of the pursuit of perfection being the enemy of the good, and the net effect can only serve to reduce rental stock availability. Accordingly, we will be opposing the amendments.

Council divided on amendments:

Ayes (4): Katherine Copsey, Sarah Mansfield, Aiv Puglielli, Georgie Purcell

Noes (32): Ryan Batchelor, Melina Bath, John Berger, Lizzie Blandthorn, Jeff Bourman, Gaelle Broad, Georgie Crozier, David Davis, Moira Deeming, Enver Erdogan, Jacinta Ermacora, David Ettershank, Michael Galea, Renee Heath, Ann-Marie Hermans, Shaun Leane, David Limbrick, Wendy Lovell, Trung Luu, Bev McArthur, Joe McCracken, Tom McIntosh, Evan Mulholland, Rachel Payne, Harriet Shing, Ingrid Stitt, Jaclyn Symes, Lee Tarlamis, Gayle Tierney, Rikkie-Lee Tyrrell, Sheena Watt, Richard Welch

Amendments negatived.

I move:

1. Clause 3, before line 25 insert –

“(3) At least once every 12 months the Treasurer must cause to be laid before each House of Parliament, and publish on an appropriate government website, a report setting out in respect of the period covered by the report –

(a) the number of transfers of dutiable property to which this section applied; and

(b) the total amount of adjustments to the consideration for transfers of dutiable property to which this section applied; and

(c) the amount of duty foregone, or likely to be foregone, by the State because of the application of this section.”.

2. Clause 3, line 25, omit “(3)” and insert “(4)”.

Given the roaring success of our past few amendments, hopefully this one is a little bit less controversial for folks. It is our view that this bill should have a reporting requirement. To that effect this amendment is to see that at least once every 12 months we have a publicly available source of data on the number of concessions granted and on the cost of these concessions. We need to know the impact of this change as proposed in this bill and the impact it has on the actual affordability of housing.

Thanks, Mr Puglielli, for moving that amendment. Government already reports, as you would know, annually on the duty that has been forgone through the off-the-plan concession through the budget process. This amendment, again in practical effect, would create an unnecessary administrative burden for the State Revenue Office (SRO) and for government. Our priority is getting this bill passed as quickly as possible to provide certainty to the sector and, to echo the comments made by Cath Evans of the Property Council of Australia, to provide certainty and also to get more homes built for Victorians. On that basis we will not be supporting this amendment.

On consideration I think that what is being proposed here is sort of redundant because the data will already exist within the SRO. I do not think it is helpful to put in legislation what the reporting requirements may be, because they will change over time and should be flexible. I do not think that it is helpful to add this, and therefore the Libertarian Party will not be supporting it.

We will be supporting this amendment. We think it is useful additional transparency. We appreciate the comments regarding the administrative burden, but we think on balance transparency and clarity for the electorate is more important.

The opposition will be supporting this amendment.

Council divided on amendments:

Ayes (18): Melina Bath, Gaelle Broad, Katherine Copsey, Georgie Crozier, David Davis, David Ettershank, Renee Heath, Ann-Marie Hermans, Wendy Lovell, Trung Luu, Sarah Mansfield, Bev McArthur, Joe McCracken, Evan Mulholland, Rachel Payne, Aiv Puglielli, Georgie Purcell, Richard Welch

Noes (18): Ryan Batchelor, John Berger, Lizzie Blandthorn, Jeff Bourman, Moira Deeming, Enver Erdogan, Jacinta Ermacora, Michael Galea, Shaun Leane, David Limbrick, Tom McIntosh, Harriet Shing, Ingrid Stitt, Jaclyn Symes, Lee Tarlamis, Gayle Tierney, Rikkie-Lee Tyrrell, Sheena Watt

Amendments negatived.

Clause agreed to; clause 4 agreed to.

Reported to house without amendment.

Harriet SHING (Eastern Victoria – Minister for Housing, Minister for Water, Minister for Equality) (17:08): I move:

That the report be now adopted.

Motion agreed to.

Report adopted.

Third reading

Harriet SHING (Eastern Victoria – Minister for Housing, Minister for Water, Minister for Equality) (17:08): I move:

That the bill be now read a third time.

Motion agreed to.

Read third time.

The PRESIDENT: Pursuant to standing order 14.28, a message will be sent to the Assembly informing them that the bill has been agreed to without amendment.