Land Tax

The Hon. F. PANGALLO (14:50): When did the Treasurer and the Premier decide that they would introduce aggregated land tax, particularly after the announcement that was made a week before last year's election that they were looking at land tax reforms and reducing the rate of land tax? The word 'aggregated' never appeared in any of those statements. When did that happen?

The Hon. R.I. LUCAS (Treasurer) (14:51): I can only say again that the quality of the honourable member's questions has declined steadily as it has gone along, having congratulated him on the first one. Aggregation, as I indicated yesterday, has existed in land tax law for decades. The government hasn't introduced aggregation, so the honourable member's question as to when did the Premier and the Treasurer decide to introduce aggregation doesn't make sense because aggregation has existed in land tax law for decades.

The former government, as I have indicated on a number of occasions, in 2008 made amendments to the aggregation laws and the former treasurer referred to—and these are his words; I have not used them—antiavoidance mechanisms. That was the former Labor treasurer who sought to make changes to the aggregation provisions. There is this view which is being cultivated by, I think, inaccurate statements in the public media, that in some way aggregation is being introduced.

There are people coming to members of parliament saying, 'You're going to introduce aggregation. You are going to add my one investment property to my principal place of residence.' No-one has ever even contemplated that sort of circumstance but there is, at this stage, concern—which when the bill is introduced should be allayed, as long as people accurately reflect what is in the bill—that in the case, for example, where someone has a principal place of residence which is exempt and they have a single investment property, because the threshold is actually going up to $450,000 there are almost 8,000 people who will not be paying any land tax as a result of that.

If you have an investment property which is worth between $1 million and $5 million, instead of paying 3.7 per cent you will be paying 2.9 per cent; you will be paying less land tax. But people have this view that all of a sudden the government is going to introduce aggregation. Now, because the bill, in its final nature, because we had promised to consult on it with the Property Council and everybody else, we have left ourselves open to that sort of scare campaign.

We accept that, but in the end, on balance, we decided that because it would be controversial it was better for us to accept the criticisms of that but at least be able to say to all the groups who were going to be opposed to this, 'We are consulting and we are listening in relation to the final shape, nature and structure of the bill that we are going to introduce to the parliament by the end of September.'

I am consulting at the moment. I have had a whole series of meetings and so, too, has the Premier, with a whole variety of people. We are already consulting in relation to that. There will then be a bill that will go out and there will then be the final bill to be introduced to parliament and, as I said yesterday, it will be subject to the will of both houses of Parliament as to whether or not the parliament agrees that it is a worthwhile reform to be supported.

The PRESIDENT: The Hon. Mr Pangallo, a further supplementary.