Hansard debates

Melina BATH (Eastern Victoria) (14:16): I believe that Victorians are a fair group of people. The overwhelming majority of Victorians understand that their hard-earned cash needs to be paid in taxes ‍– proportional taxes – to provide all the services that are so vital: our hospitals, our schools, our roads that are supposedly car worthy, our police force, our ambulance services, and I could go on. They are fair people, but I believe they also have a limit. I believe we are reaching a point now where, with the Andrews government, now the Allan government, since 2014, since Mr Andrews actually looked down that camera lens and said, ‘I will not introduce new or increased taxes’, we are up to the 52nd ‍tax. I believe fair Victorians are quite reasonably and quite justifiably sick to death of these new taxes.

Some will say, ‘Well, this one is only going to apply to the wealthy.’ I think middle Victoria – those mums and dads, those grandmas and grandpas – are getting increasingly burdened with these sorts of taxes. The government’s commentary around this tax is that it will increase housing supply, so let us tax vacant land, let us tax vacant property and let us tax Victorians as a way of increasing housing supply. The government has failed to show Victorians what basis for that modelling exists, because it does not exist. It is an apparition. It is a thought bubble. It is a cash grab of the Treasurer – the poor, suffering Treasurer. He has the job of dealing with this government’s incompetence, waste and mismanagement. It is his role to scratch around and find another tax. Well, here he has found one today. There is no modelling to demonstrate how this new tax will deliver greater housing supply.

We already know that Victorians are the highest taxed people in the nation. It is not an award that we want to win. Over $5000 per person – it is the highest in the nation, and it is not a crown that we want to wear. We see increases so far in the fire services property levy. We see increases to WorkCover average premiums, and we know that that has still got to be worked through and fixed because it is a burden that businesses are having to bear. We know that there are increases in payroll taxes on businesses and on the health tax. I was just listening to my colleague Ms Crozier talk about the local health tax on GP clinics, on dentists and on other health providers – this retrospective payroll tax. At a time when country Victorians are screaming out to get a doctor and to be able to book in for one earlier than a month in advance – we respect our doctors enormously and we value them enormously ‍– to have this level of stress on those local clinics, who are small businesses too, and have that retrospective tax is unfathomable.

A payroll tax on independent schools – the Nationals and the Liberals certainly helped to wind that back slightly, but that does not help people provide additional choice in the education sector. We have seen holiday and tourism taxes, and even this week we have seen the government increase charges on Victorian ports. Post COVID we need all the additional funds into our lovely state that we can get, yet we have got a government arcing up, increasing the taxes into ports so that cruise ship operators are now rethinking whether they will actually choose Melbourne as a port. Will they choose to put thousands of visitors into our state with their cash to spend in our fair city? No, they will not. They are saying they are walking away from that as well.

We see this vacant residential land tax. To my mind it is counterproductive to put a tax like this on other people. We understand the rental market is getting harder and harder. There are more people, and we heard today from Mrs Broad that one mother in Bendigo had applied for 300 rental properties and was turned away from 300 rental properties. It is getting harder and harder to rent. I know my own family members, my relatives in Melbourne, have gone back to live with mum and dad for a while – not me, but relatives – because there are 50 people at a rental property inspection at any given time. We know that rents are at record highs and growing. The median house rent is growing by over 11 per cent and the median unit rent is up by 22 per cent year on year. This makes it oh-so-extremely challenging.

The Nationals the other day had a conversation with Quentin Kilian from the Real Estate Institute of Victoria on rental landlords and their stress. The government seems to think that if you tax landlords, if you push them, then somehow this will further add to rental markets. What it is actually doing we do understand. We do know, the facts are there, that 70 per cent of landlords are mum-and-dad investors and 43 per cent of those earn less than $100,000 combined per year. They are not exorbitantly affluent people. These are normal everyday people thinking about how they can take their hard-earned cash and make something of it but also provide that service. If you are going to tax land, tax property and continue to tax these sorts of people, it is going to be a disincentive.

What is clear also from the Real Estate Institute of Victoria is that when those houses go back onto the market indeed there are a percentage that just do not go to rentals. Of course, when you put those houses back onto the market, people who are in rental situations are not necessarily the people who can afford to buy them. Unfortunately or otherwise there will be renters who will continue to rent for their lives. Taking houses off the market is unfortunate, and it does not help the situation. We need to see incentives for properties to go into this rental market, not deterrents.

The vacant residential land tax bill before us today is increasing taxes on property owners. This bill is going to apply to residential properties, as it stands, in inner Melbourne and Melbourne’s suburbs which are empty for six months, but this is going to be expanded to unoccupied residential properties across the entire state. It taxes residential land that has been undeveloped for more than five years, but now we see the government is looking at deals with the Greens to change that via amendments to three years. It is a frustration for people.

Unfortunately the expansion of the existing vacant residential land tax to outer Melbourne, regional Victoria and right across the state is expected to raise about $6 million a year from January 2025. The change will include land that has been vacant for, as I said, what was five years and now is going to go down to three under a nice little deal with the Greens. It is a challenge when we see the modus operandi of how this tax will work. Will neighbours be looking to dob in somebody whose house is next door and to whom they can see that this tax might apply? I do not feel that that is a very positive step in our great society.

The Liberals and Nationals certainly are very focused on cost of living, focused on people being able to make their way through life and support everyone, which I think is aspirational, to be able to have a roof over their head and to have that stability, that hierarchy of needs, that is so very important and very needed. One of our policies is in relation to reducing Victoria’s taxes. We have made the commitment, through our Shadow Treasurer, to have a whole taxation review, and I think this is a very wise and important step.

With those few words, Acting President McArthur, I will clearly state that the Nationals oppose this bill. I am sure you will be pleased to hear that as well. We oppose this bill. Victorians do not need another tax.