FIRST HOME AND HOUSING CONSTRUCTION GRANTS (ELIGIBILITY CRITERIA) AMENDMENT BILL

Introduction and First Reading

The Hon. G.E. GAGO (Minister for Agriculture, Food and Fisheries, Minister for Forests, Minister for Regional Development, Minister for the Status of Women, Minister for State/Local Government Relations) (11:03): Obtained leave and introduced a bill for an act to amend the First Home and Housing Construction Grants Act 2000. Read a first time.

Second Reading

The Hon. G.E. GAGO (Minister for Agriculture, Food and Fisheries, Minister for Forests, Minister for Regional Development, Minister for the Status of Women, Minister for State/Local Government Relations) (11:03): I move:

That this bill be now read a second time.

This bill introduces legislative amendments to the eligibility criteria for the Housing Construction Grant (HCG). Under the First Home and Housing Construction Grants Act 2000, only one HCG is payable in relation to a particular new home. In many cases, both the person who has a home built on their land (including the owner builder) and a subsequent purchaser of the same new home, may be eligible for the HCG.

The act allows the HCG to be paid to either party in recognition that the scheme was intended to provide maximum flexibility to the housing construction industry, enabling the HCG to be claimed in a manner that best suited the nature of individual transactions. While the act enables RevenueSA to disclose that a HCG has been paid on a particular property, it does not currently make provision for how competing applications for the HCG should be treated. This has led to a small number of cases where there have been disputes over who the HCG should be paid to when there is more than one application.

The amendments in the bill operate to ensure that, unless otherwise agreed between the parties, the purchaser of the new home should receive the HCG in these situations. The policy of the government has always intended to give the benefit to the HCG to the purchasers in these scenarios and the amendments in this bill provide for that outcome, so I commend the bill to the house. I seek leave to have the explanation of clauses inserted into Hansard without my reading them.

Leave granted.

Explanation of Clauses

Part 1—Preliminary

1—Short title

This clause is formal.

2—Commencement

This clause provides that operation of the measure will commence on 1 July 2013. If the Act is not assented to before 1 July 2013, it will be taken to have come into operation on that date.

3—Amendment provisions

This clause is formal.

Part 2—Amendment of First Home and Housing Construction Grants Act 2000

4—Amendment of section 18BAB—Housing construction grant

This clause amends section 18BAB of the Act by substituting '1 January 2014' for '1 July 2013', so that a housing construction grant is payable on an application under the Act (subject to the other requirements of the section) if the commencement date of the eligible transaction is on or after 15 October 2012 but before 1 January 2014. If the eligible transaction is a contract for an 'off-the-plan' purchase of a new home, the contract must state that the eligible transaction is to be completed on or before 30 June 2015 (unless the transaction is completed on or before that date). Currently, the section requires the contract to state that the eligible transaction is to be completed on or before 31 December 2014.

Schedule 1—Transitional provision

1—Transitional provision

A transitional provision is included to deal with the possibility of a person receiving an ex gratia payment to provide for a housing construction grant for the period between 1 July 2013 and the day on which the Act is assented to by the Governor. If a person is entitled to a housing construction grant in relation to an eligible transaction with a commencement date that is on or after 1 July 2013, and the person has received an ex gratia payment before the Act is assented to, the amount of the entitlement will be reduced by the amount of the ex gratia payment.

Debate adjourned on motion of Hon. J.M.A. Lensink.