Media Release

Will Hodgman MP
Leader of the State Opposition
Peter Gutwein MP
Shadow Treasurer

Thursday 10th December 2009

Land Tax back flip

Will Hodgman said:

Today’s Land Tax back flip shows that the only people the Labor Party are listening to is their pollsters. Just a couple of months ago the Treasurer and Premier were adamant that nothing could be done until after the Henry Review and that Land Tax was just a fact of life.

However, as we’ve seen before, now that they realise they are on the nose they are falling over each other in a race to abandon everything they’ve said and done to make a desperate grab for votes.

If the Government was really listening to the people they would have moved on Land Tax years ago.

Peter Gutwein said:

Today’s announcement is long overdue.

It remains our intention to eventually abolish Land Tax and we will be making an announcement in early 2010 on how we will move to achieve that.

We remain concerned that the Government’s changes continue to link Land Tax receipts to revaluations and therefore this tax, even with the changes, remains a growth tax.

Today’s announcement further calls into question the long-term health of the Budget, considering that Labor has already promised more than $160 million in new spending since 1 July 2009.

These Land Tax changes will cost more than $111 million between 2009-10 and 2012-13, and while we welcome the news that the Government is listening to our calls for Land Tax reform, the Premier and the Treasurer must now release a budget update to explain where the money is coming from to pay for these cuts.