The last few weeks have seen a flurry of announcements and advocacy from around the country. Here’s a quick rundown of the highlights.
Pleasingly, the Queensland government has listened to the drumbeat of concerns and shelved its nonsensical interstate land tax model. The changes would have used non-Queensland properties to calculate Queensland land tax liabilities – a bizarre, complex and expensive idea. The Property Council led the charge to see this dropped and for other states not to adopt this idea.
In the West, the WA government announced a slew of planning reform proposals aimed at streamlining the planning system by reducing red tape, reforming developer contributions and establishing a more centralised and less politicised process for development assessments – all proposals championed by the Property Council.
Last Friday the Productivity Commission released a damning indictment of housing policy, calling for a much bigger focus on housing supply to deliver affordability dividends and a complete overhaul of the approach to funding of affordable housing. The review also supported a level playing field approach to taxes on Build-to-Rent housing.
Today we release our Victorian Election policy platform in the lead up to next month’s election. The platform focuses on three key pillars to unlocking the state’s full potential: affordability, liveability and productivity.
On a final note, tomorrow I will be joining Assistant Minister for Energy and Emissions Jenny McAlister at the 2022 Energy Efficiency Summit in what is expected to be the new federal government’s first announcements on the property industry’s role in electrification and energy efficiency. You can still register for the free online event.
