Additional taxes and charges in Labor’s Budget will make home ownership less achievable for the people of New South Wales.
Shadow Minister for Housing Scott Farlow said that more housing is a mirage under Minns. Labor’s best effort to build more homes is for Landcom to deliver a measly 88 affordable homes and 206 market homes per year through to 2039-40.
“Housing was supposed to be the centrepiece of this Budget, yet the Labor Government’s only answer is to impose more taxes for those building new homes, which makes homes less affordable. It also imposes more costs and increases the difficulty for the private sector, which provide the vast majority of housing supply, to deliver more homes,” Mr Farlow said.
“The Government’s infrastructure centrepiece is funded by a tax on new homes, with the associated infrastructure not tied to the area in which the development occurs.”
“Rather than outlining new vision and focussing on measures to increase supply, the Government has increased taxation.”
“The Housing and Productivity Contribution could add up to $37,000 to the price of a new home in Western Sydney if it attracts both a strategic biodiversity component and transport project component.”
“The money raised by this contribution isn’t tied to the geographic area, with the potential for funds raised from a new development in Penrith paying for a bike path in Petersham.”
“There has been no revised feasibility assessment of this charge since 2020 and since that time interest rates have risen by 400 basis points and construction costs have increased by 30%.”
“Worse still, the Government is not undertaking any further contributions reform and is applying this charge at the Construction Certificate stage, the point in the construction where financing is most difficult and will add additional financing costs on builders.”
“The Budget papers also reveal that Sydney Water’s development servicing plan (DSP) will not just be used for infrastructure recovery costs, but be used to increase Sydney Water dividends by 4.5 times over the forward estimates with no commensurate savings to consumers.”
“This is a great big tax on industry and consumers that will make new homes in Western Sydney more expensive and not save users any money on their water bills.”
“The last Liberals and Nationals budget delivered a $2.8 billion Housing Package that helped first home buyers, created a shared equity scheme, accelerated the delivery of new infrastructure to support housing and upgraded and enhanced NSW’s social housing stock,” Mr Farlow said.
