Statutes Amendment (Budget Measures) Bill

Second Reading

Adjourned debate on second reading (resumed on motion).

Mr COWDREY (Colton) (16:03): I rise today to provide a contribution on the Statutes Amendment (Budget Measures) Bill. I indicate that I am the lead speaker for the opposition and that the opposition will not be standing in the way of the passage of this bill through parliament. As you would be well aware, Acting Speaker, it is convention for such a bill to pass through this parliament, but of course there are times, historically, when opposing such a bill has been required.

I think back to when the Liberal opposition, led by the member for Dunstan, opposed the bank tax that the Weatherill government was trying to impose on the state at that point in time. The public backlash against the $370 million bank tax was phenomenal. The people of South Australia were right to think that, as customers of those banks, ultimately they would be the ones paying the price through higher fees and charges. They are also right to believe that jobs and investment would be lost into South Australia should that tax have proceeded.

The Liberal Party was correct at that point in time to oppose the budget measures bill—and let me assure you that this opposition is no different. If the state government puts forward a proposal that we believe is not in the long-term interests of South Australia and its people, we will not be shy in ensuring that we take up the fight when and if it is needed, which brings me to the budget measures that were outlined in the bill this year.

The first of those that I want to briefly touch on is the emergency services levy. Obviously, the rate settings are changed every year—well, at times in one direction, at times in the other. Certainly, under this government, to this point we have seen nothing but increases, and that really at its crux draws the stark contrast in approach from the previous government, led by the member for Dunstan, and where we are at the moment.

Members on this side of the house certainly appreciate that there did need to be some changes in the settings that were made. In my previous contribution, we just talked about the fact that spending had become out of control, that we were at the point of the then Treasurer, the member for West Torrens, seeking to introduce new taxes to South Australia to punish businesses and families.

By contrast, the previous government took the opposite approach. The previous government decided, quite rightly, that there needed to be reduced costs of living for South Australian families, that there needed to be reduced costs of doing business for South Australian businesses in this state. That is why that approach to reinstall the remissions in regard to the emergency services levy were taken and why emergency services levy bills for South Australian families dropped in the initial year of the Marshall Liberal government.

We then had the decision in regard to SA Water bills where we found that the regulatory asset base had been significantly overvalued by the previous government, leading to increased water bills above what they needed to actually pay for South Australian families and businesses.

Then we get to the issue of payroll tax—again, a tax that needed to be changed. We wanted to, and did, provide essentially an abolition of stamp duty for small businesses with a payroll up to $1.5 million. What I found completely laughable in an answer in question time today—to be completely honest, you cannot even make this stuff up—was we had the Premier there describing the actions of this new modern Labor Party as being the reason that South Australia has the regulatory business environment it does today.

We are discussing the very bill that makes changes to that regulatory environment. If we look back at this bill last year, the only real change was the emergency services levy going up. So not a single decision of this government has actually played into any of that regulatory environment setting being in place.

The decisions that I have just talked about in regard to the reduction in SA Water bills, the reduction in the payroll tax threshold, the reduction in the emergency services levy when the former government were on the treasury bench are what have set this state to be the most competitive place in Australia to do business. It is laughable that the Premier has the gall to stand up in question time and take credit for something that he has quite plainly not taken any actions to move in the right direction.

That leads me to the stamp duty changes that this government has made. Again, I will stand here any day and say without a shadow of a doubt that taking steps to make housing more affordable for South Australians is a good thing. That is clear. What was not clear during the time post budget, particularly immediately post the budget when we had trucks running up and down North Terrace saying this government has abolished stamp duty for new homebuyers—well, the caveats and the asterisks were left off that media rolling around the town. It was only later, once you started to crawl into the detail, that you found out that it is only for new homebuyers, that it is only for new houses, that it is only for houses up to a value of $650,000.

On the back of this, we set up an online tracker, where people could work out whether they were in fact eligible for what I will call a stamp duty concession rather than abolition because I think 'abolition' is probably a little bit too much of a stretch to cover the field in regard to what is actually in place. The house would probably be surprised by how many people contacted us saying that they did not understand that they were not going to be eligible. The silver bullet that was being thrown out as the solution to our housing crisis from this government was so narrow in scope that what seemed like something that was going to apply to nearly every first-home buyer actually applied to very few.

You only have to go, as we did during the estimates process, and work through the numbers themselves. For the program, $125 million has been put towards the concession over a four-year period. That breaks down to roughly $32 million a year, and then we are talking approximately 3,500 people having access to that fund. I have taken the liberty of doing the quick maths for the house, and it works out, on average, to an $8,000 concession. Would it surprise the house to learn that it equates to approximately $250,000 in value?

It is this very government that is saying, 'We actually don't expect first-home buyers buying new builds to be accessing this grant.' If we were to more aptly describe the measure, it is essentially a payroll tax concession on new land; that is what it should be named. If you break it down through the numbers the government have supplied themselves through their budget papers, we are talking about an $8,000 concession on new land.

Again, every step that is taken to make housing more affordable in this state in the period of time we are in is a good thing. Nobody on this side is saying it is bad. What we are saying, though, is that you should be up-front about how you communicate this to the people of South Australia. Do not promise a Ferrari and deliver a Datsun. Do not say that this is going to solve the problems in our housing market.

It is clear that it is an absolute furphy to run around and say that we are abolishing stamp duty for first-home buyers—an absolute furphy. I talked earlier about the fact that we had the online tracker set up so that people could determine whether they were or were not eligible. I am reliably informed that the government have actually gone and done it themselves now, to point out to residents whether they are or are not eligible.

I have spoken about the ESL and I have spoken now about the stamp duty concession. What I want to reflect on again briefly—because it is important and it is fundamental to what we are talking about and the settings that can be changed through a budget process, and it has been made clear through this document where a threshold has been changed in regard to the first-home owners grant—is that this Treasurer has from time to time turned their mind to looking at the issues of adjusting thresholds. They certainly have in regard to housing. However, if you look across just about every other area, if you look at the revenue from the taxation that is coming into this state, in every other area the government has effectively benefited from not touching any of the settings.

In my previous contribution, I talked about the stark contrast with the Marshall government and our approach to reducing the cost of living and the cost of doing business here in South Australia. This is the complete opposite. We are in an environment where we have nation-leading inflation, where we have wages growing, where we have property prices increasing and where every component of a household's budget is feeling the pressure.

I could again go back to the fact that the Treasurer, on radio a year and a half ago, made the point that if the need were there, that if inflation were still running rife, he would step in and make changes to the standard calculation and reduce cost to South Australians. He did not do that. Instead, we see a budget that was overspent by well over $1 billion, additional GST revenues into the state in the order of $320-odd million more than was projected when the budget was handed down.

Based on inflation, based on everyday Australians going out there spending more for goods than they ever anticipated at the start of the financial year just to deliver the same goods they need, based on the payrolls of South Australian businesses escalating, in a crunch where everybody is competing to have staff, what we have is essentially a government that has been benefiting from both ends of the stick in regard to inflation.

Inflation is, without a doubt, this Treasurer's magical money tree that he hides out the back of Treasury, but it is the people of South Australia and the businesses of South Australia that are watering it and growing it for this government. There was no cutting of the cloth in terms of spending from government; it was just quietly, 'Let the thresholds creep. Let's take more and more.' That is the approach this government have taken.

While their promise, coming to the election, was no new taxes, we certainly know that the tax revenue coming into this state is far above and beyond what was expected—not just when this budget was handed down but significantly more than when budgets were handed down the year before that.

On the back of those comments I would like to briefly turn to the bigger picture in regard to the opportunities that were there or that could have been presented through this budget measures bill and, more broadly, the budget. Again, laughably, we had the Premier in here today taking credit for the good financial fiscal environment, regulatory environment, that we have here in South Australia, listing off the achievements of his government. I challenge him to ask everyday South Australians whether they think South Australia is in a good place right now, whether they think the South Australian economy is in a good place right now.

What is coming out of his mouth is so starkly different from what we are hearing at doors, what everybody here is hearing on the radio and what is plainly clear in regard to statistics. We have one of the highest unemployment rates in the nation, we have the highest level of inflation in the country, we have the highest electricity costs in the nation, and we know that we have South Australian families now paying $20,000 a year more for the basics—housing, food, electricity, petrol—than they were when this government was elected.

There was no broad cost-of-living relief for all families through this budget, as we have touched on previously on a number of occasions. Not only did we lose the opportunity of being frank with the South Australian public about presenting where we really are but we had a government, a Treasurer and a Premier who managed to turn a $259 million surplus into a near similar-sized deficit. We have blowouts in just about every significant infrastructure project across the state and we have a budget that is just simply out of control moving forward.

There is a lot that could have been done in this budget. There is nearly $700 million of initial revenue that could have gone to housing, that could have gone to providing additional relief for first-home buyers and that could have gone to supporting our children coming into the early years education system, but instead we had budget blowouts and a budget position that does not reflect well on this government.

Mr BROWN (Florey) (16:20): I am pleased to speak in support of this bill and in so doing to support the advancement of initiatives within the Malinauskas Labor government's second budget.

It is a budget that reflects our priorities of working towards a more sustainable, more efficient health system that better meets the needs of our community, helping make home ownership more accessible to more people, reforming rental laws and supplying more public housing and more affordable housing, and doing what we can to relieve the cost-of-living pressures that are presenting challenges to so many South Australians.

As others and the Treasurer have made clear, the bill before us contains amendments to relevant legislation that will enable our government to implement measures announced in the budget. Namely, this bill proposes to amend the Emergency Services Funding Act 1998, the First Home and Housing Construction Grants Act 2000, the Land Tax Act 1936 and the Stamp Duties Act 1923.

Rather than simply elucidate each of the amendments to the above acts that are contained in this bill, I will seek to contribute my views on why the initiatives that some of these amendments in particular will facilitate are so important for our community and reflect on the outcomes that we intend will arise from them.

By amending the Stamp Duties Act 1923 we abolish stamp duty for eligible first-home buyers who are buying a new home with a value of up to $650,000 with relief progressively phased out for properties valued up to $700,000. Stamp duty will also not be payable on the purchase of vacant land on which a new home will be built for land valued up to $400,000 with relief phasing out for land valued up to $450,000.

This bill also amends the First Home and Housing Construction Grants Act 2000 to increase the property value cap for eligibility for the $15,000 First Home Owner Grant. Currently, the grant is not payable if the market value of the property exceeds $575,000. This amendment will mean the grant is not payable if the market value of the relevant home exceeds $650,000.

All told, these changes mean that, when combined with the stamp duty relief we are bringing, an eligible first-home buyer could receive total relief of up to $44,580 on the purchase of a new home valued at $650,000. We anticipate that these measures will assist around 3,800 South Australian first-home buyers each year. To be eligible for the stamp duty relief, the new home must be occupied by the buyer as their principal place of residence, ensuring that the people who can avail themselves of this support from government are those whom we intend to help in this way.

But our efforts in this area are not just about facilitating cost relief by abolishing stamp duty. There are complementary efforts to those items which are dealt within this bill—other ways in which the Malinauskas Labor government is working to make home ownership obtainable for a wider range of South Australians. For example, we are expanding access to HomeStart's interest-free starter loan to more people, increasing the annual income cap for the starter loan from $65,000 to $75,000 for singles and from $90,000 to $100,000 for couples.

HomeStart is also introducing a new home loan that enables eligible first-home buyers building a new home to take out a loan with a deposit of as little as 2 per cent, and notably this represents an improvement on the election commitment made by the government of a 3 per cent loan. When you consider all these items together you can see how our efforts combine to extend opportunities for home ownership to a large cohort of South Australians. Given the challenging conditions of the housing market that we see across our state and across the nation, these are initiatives I am confident will make real differences to the residents within my electorate and well beyond.

Opportunity will be further strengthened for prospective first-home buyers following our land release—the single largest residential land release in South Australia—with 25,000 new blocks of land being made available across Adelaide's northern and southern suburbs. This will increase housing supply and, together with our other measures in housing policy, will increase opportunity for South Australians to achieve their aspirations of home ownership.

To support our community even further, we are implementing a fast-tracked approval process for eligible first-home buyers to expedite the planning approval process. This is intended to ensure that first-home buyers across our state can get into their new home sooner. With the current challenges of the housing market, that can only be a good thing for our community because these actions of the Malinauskas Labor government come at a time when they are truly needed.

South Australians from all backgrounds are feeling the pressures of the housing market across our state and certainly in my electorate. Whether they are public housing tenants, private renters or prospective homebuyers, the current conditions are creating stress and difficulty that any good government would work hard to alleviate. Housing is a human right and every South Australian deserves a place to call home. I am glad to be part of a government that is doing so much to get more South Australians into more homes.

Our initiatives in stamp duty relief, boosting eligibility for the First Home Owner Grant, and opening up new loan options are complemented by our other activities in the housing policy area. These include building new public homes, stopping the sale of further public homes, enacting significant reforms to residential tenancy laws and expanding eligibility for the Private Rental Assistance Program.

I note that recently it became clear that South Australia has led the nation in new home sales growth. The Housing Industry Association's New Home Sales Report showed that new home sales in our state shot up by 35.5 per cent in July 2023, while every other state that was surveyed saw the numbers fall. The data comes from surveys taken of builders during July.

I hope that we can expect to see new home sales growth increase further as this initiative benefits more and more South Australians. It already says good things about our building industry and our economy that this result was achieved in July 2023, with new builds slowing elsewhere but gaining ground here in our state. The removal of stamp duty for first-home buyers purchasing a new home offers strong potential to further improve the prospects of our building and construction sector, and I hope this will continue to inspire confidence within the industry.

It is certainly true that the HIA, the Master Builders Association and the Property Council have all welcomed the housing measures contained in the budget and I am pleased to have their approval of our government initiatives. It is reasonable to conclude that we owe their warm response to our housing package initiatives to the fact that the policies therein are quite simply good policies.

Those in the sector know very well that increasing supply creates more options and helps put downward pressure on prices. Our policies have undeniable merit in the benefits they offer, both to our community and to our building and construction sectors. And who could disagree? It would be only an opposition that are frustrated at having to be confronted with the unpalatable truth that they squandered four years of government by sitting on their hands in this policy area, among others, but at least they will learn by our example for the next time, whenever that may come to pass.

The 2023-24 South Australian budget delivers a great deal of good for people right across our community. The area of housing is but one of many in which we have taken clear action to help South Australians to realise their hopes for themselves and to live well. The measures contained in the bill now before us support the objectives of the budget and will help to bring the good ideas of the cabinet and of this government to fruition. I commend the bill to the house.

Ms WORTLEY (Torrens) (16:27): I rise in support of the Statutes Amendment (Budget Measures) Bill, which, when passed, will amend legislation relating to budget measures in the 2023-24 budget. This includes the Stamp Duties Act 1923, the Land Tax Act 1936, the First Home and Housing Construction Grants Act 2000 and the Emergency Services Funding Act 1998. I am pleased with the benefits that our government's budget, including through the passing of this bill, will deliver to many, and in particular to those in our community who would otherwise miss out and be left behind.

Some of the benefits include increases to concessions in line with inflation, including the Cost of Living Concession, energy concession, medical heating and cooling concession, water concession and sewerage concession, all benefiting South Australian households on low or fixed incomes. There are also increased carer payments for family-based carers, as well as the continuation of the $100 subsidy of the materials and service charge for the 2024 school year, benefiting parents and caregivers of 120,000 government school children.

There is also the expanded school breakfast program, providing more than a million additional breakfasts, support for food charities and financial counselling, and the continuing of the commitment to the Seniors Card holders' access to 24/7 free public transport—and that is just to name a handful.

A stand-out of this budget was the abolition of the stamp duty for eligible first-home buyers. This means no stamp duty for those who fit this category when buying a new home with a price value of up to $650,000, with relief progressively phasing out for properties valued at up to $700,000. This, along with an increase to the $15,000 First Home Owner Grant property value cap, from $575,000 to $650,000, is most welcome by many in our community and no doubt across the state.

To be eligible for relief, the new home must be occupied as a principal place of residence, similar to existing requirements for the First Home Owner Grant under the First Home and Housing Construction Grants Act 2000. In addition, there will be no stamp duty for the purchase of vacant land valued at up to $400,000, with relief phasing out for land valued at up to $450,000, on which a new home will be built. Combined, these amendments to the First Home and Housing Construction Grants Act 2000 and the Stamp Duties Act 1923 deliver significant savings for many first-home buyers.

We know there are cost-of-living pressures compounded by soaring housing costs, which are fuelled by increasing house values, mortgage costs and rents—all pushing the Australian dream of house ownership further away. However, the measures in this bill will go some way in assisting many in our community, making that dream of home ownership for many South Australians a reality while at the same time delivering jobs.

In speaking with residents in Torrens, it became apparent that it was not only young people in the 20 to 30 age bracket who were going to be assisted by these budget measures but a significant number across all age brackets—some who had never before owned a home, including some who thought that they never would.

Also welcome is the government's commitment to fast-track the approval process for eligible first-home buyers. This, along with the news of HomeStart's introduction of a new home loan enabling eligible first-home buyers building a new home to access a loan with as little as 2 per cent deposit, reducing the number of years to save for a deposit, will be a significant benefit.

As part of the government's plan for a better housing future, there are also measures in this bill that will see a reduction in land tax for eligible build-to-rent properties, designed to support the uptake of investment in residential rental housing, increasing the supply of housing and creating more opportunities for renters, many of whom are in the main doing it tough. The discount reduces the land value of the parcel of land being used as an eligible build-to-rent property for land tax purposes by 50 per cent until the 2039-40 land tax year.

While delivering on the priorities of housing, health and cost-of-living relief, our government's budget also delivers measures to improve child protection outcomes as well as responding to the devastating flooding along the River Murray. It delivers investment in education and skills; road safety; policing and support functions; major new infrastructure projects, including a new purpose-built facility for Forensic Science SA and SAPOL Forensics Services Branch, and the Adelaide Aquatic Centre project; major events, sport and art; and growing the space industry. All these support our economic growth, deliver jobs and build confidence among businesses and consumers.

The bill before us, the Statutes Amendment (Budget Measures) Bill, forms part of our government's commitment to South Australians, in addition to delivering new public housing homes, halting the sale of further public housing properties and facilitating greater access to HomeStart's interest-free starter loan, increasing the annual income cap for the starter loan, from $65,000 to $75,000 for singles and from $90,000 to $100,000 for couples.

I am proud to stand here today as a member of the Malinauskas government, delivering the commitments that we made at the election and commitments that will make life easier for South Australians.

Debate adjourned on motion of Mr Odenwalder.