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House of Assembly - Fifty-Second Parliament, First Session (52-1)
2010-07-01 Daily Xml
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VALUATION OF LAND (NOTIONAL VALUATIONS) AMENDMENT BILL

Introduction and First Reading

The Hon. I.F. EVANS (Davenport) (10:45): Obtained leave and introduced a bill for an act to amend the Valuation of Land Act 1971. Read a first time.

Second Reading

The Hon. I.F. EVANS (Davenport) (10:45): I move:

That this bill be now read a second time.

This bill will be of interest to members who have sport and recreation clubs in their electorate. The motivation for this bill comes from the Flagstaff Hill Golf Club, which is actually in the member for Fisher's electorate but one street outside of my electorate so a lot of my constituents play golf there.

As a result of the sale of the Cheltenham racecourse, the Valuer-General revalued sport and recreation grounds on the basis of the new valuation of open space. For the Flagstaff Hill Golf Club, that ended up being an increase in valuation from $2.675 million to $4.65 million, an increase of around $2 million. The golf club has not changed: the only thing that changed was that Cheltenham racecourse was sold and therefore the Valuer-General decided to flow the valuation process through to other areas of open space.

Needless to say, the increase in valuation increased the cost of operating the golf club because there are lots of taxations and rating systems based on the valuation of the land. In the Flagstaff Hill Golf Club situation, this resulted in an increase in council rates of $7,000 per annum and increases in other rates such as the emergency services levy and the club's water and sewerage bills, etc. The Flagstaff Hill Golf Club was hit with a total annual increase of over $11,000 in costs, all because the land valuation had changed, and the reason for that was the Cheltenham racecourse had been sold.

Currently, land tax is not charged when land is used for the purpose of playing sport or for horseracing, dog racing, motor racing or other similar contests. It is not charged land tax if it is used for recreation and sport for the local community. What this bill does is very simple: it gives an instruction to the Valuer-General that he is to value the land based on its notional value, not its development value. The effect of that will be that the valuation of the land will drop considerably. It means that council rates charged to the land will drop, water rates will drop and emergency services costs will drop. It will mean that the sporting clubs affected by the latest change in the valuation process will essentially be near enough to reinstated to their old rate base—their old valuation base—so their costs will drop.

So the house should be crystal clear that this bill seeks to make sport and recreation clubs more viable by changing the way the land they sit on is valued. If this bill is successful, the land that the sport and recreation facilities use will be valued at a notional valuation, which means they will have reduced charges to sport and recreation clubs rather than increased charges as has occurred in the last couple of years. As I say, in the Flagstaff Hill Golf Club's case, the cost is $11,000 extra per year for doing nothing different, except that the Valuer-General revalued the land. That is the bill. I look forward to the debate and hope the government can see its way clear to support the bill.

Debate adjourned on motion of Mrs Geraghty.

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