Land Tax

The Hon. C.M. SCRIVEN (14:36): I seek leave to make a brief explanation before asking a question of the Treasurer regarding land tax aggregation.

Leave granted.

The Hon. C.M. SCRIVEN: Last night, Louie Stevens told a land tax forum that the Marshall government's land tax policy will force him to sell all his holdings and that he would have to consider investing interstate. Seventy-six-year-old Neil from Golden Grove told the forum that the Liberal government's land tax policy would destroy his future. David Schammel told the forum that the Liberal government's land tax policy would force him to pass the significant increases in his land tax bills on to his tenants. Sam Schirripa told the forum that the building industry is too scared to invest in property developments because of the threat posed by the Liberal government's land tax policy.

Marco Formato told the forum that the Liberal government's land tax policy would force him to scale back developments and make redundancies in his business. Athan Zagotsis told the forum that he no longer has the confidence to build his future in South Australia and will most likely now move interstate because of the Liberal government's land tax policy. My question to the Treasurer is: how does the Treasurer respond to all of these South Australians who are rightly concerned about the impact of the Marshall Liberal government's land tax policy on them, their lives and our economy?

The Hon. R.I. LUCAS (Treasurer) (14:37): Very strongly and forcefully. While the honourable member quotes five or six individuals, I will quote the fact that 92 per cent of all individuals will pay less land tax as a result of the government's land tax reform package and 8 per cent will pay more land tax; 75 per cent of company groups in South Australia will pay less land tax under the land tax reform package and 25 per cent will pay more.

So whilst I acknowledge that the member may well have quoted five or six individuals, potentially those five or six individuals may well be in the 8 per cent of individuals who will end up paying more as a result of the government's land tax reform package. But there are literally thousands and thousands of mum-and-dad investors who will be paying less land tax as a result of the land tax reform package.

The only other thing I would say is that some of the individuals (and I have no direct knowledge of the five individuals that the member has quoted), when there is closer investigation of their land tax arrangements, find that they have either been advised poorly in relation to what the impacts might be or, when they do get considered final advice, find that they do not pay nearly as much as they are contemplating.

Another thing I would say in relation to the government's land tax reform package is that many quite extraordinary claims have been made. In relation to 'The whole world is going to fall in', I refer the honourable members to last week's business pages of The Advertiser, the Business Journal, where the national property market advisers Colliers said that the property market in South Australia during this quarter post the budget was extraordinarily buoyant, that there were people lining up—this is a colloquial description of what they said—people in the Eastern States lining up to invest in the property market in South Australia.

There was a separate article from Quintessential Equity, who have just recently bought a major property in the CBD, or near the CBD, who said they had $150 million in funds and they were looking at the Adelaide property market as a very prospective market in terms of property investment. The cataclysmic 'The sky is going to fall in' view of the world that the Labor Party, and indeed some in the Property Council, seek to promulgate is certainly disputed, and disputed strongly, by individuals in the Eastern States who are looking at the South Australian property market as a very prospective place to invest.

The PRESIDENT: The Hon. Ms Bonaros, a supplementary.