Media Release

Peter Gutwein MP
Shadow Treasurer

Thursday 21st January 2010

Labor Land Tax farce continues

24 hours after we announced our plans to cap and cut Land Tax and also fix Labor’s onerous and complicated rebate application process, the Government is still throwing up smoke-screens rather than admit they got their Land Tax reforms wrong.

The fact of the matter is, Labor’s policy established a preferred class of Land Tax payer when it made the rebate available only to businesses this year and that’s only available if they can work their way through an arduous 15 page application.

Under the Liberals, everyone with land valued at over $350,000 will get the rebate. Because our plan is fairer and simpler, you won’t need to fill out an onerous application to get the rebate. In addition those people who have been forgotten by Labor, namely self-funded retirees, shack-owners and mum and dad property investors, will all benefit immediately if they own land valued at more than $350,000.

Does Michael Aird stand by his complicated 15 page application process now that the Liberals have shown that there is a simple solution to the problem? Will he continue to punish any business that dares to apply for a rebate with a lengthy, onerous process? Or will he admit he got it wrong and adopt the Liberals’ simpler, fairer policy?

As for the cost of our policy, we have publicly said it will cost $24 million. We have publicly released the policy for all to see. As far as I’m concerned, there is nothing to hide and the Treasurer can submit our policy to anyone he likes.

Treasurer, if you want to submit our policy to Treasury, then by all means, knock yourself out.

This smacks of desperation by Michael Aird. Once the election is called, potentially within two weeks, all of our policies will be scrutinised by Treasury anyway.

As Michael Aird and David Bartlett have now announced nearly $400 million worth of promises, I think the public would have a greater degree of interest in hearing Treasury’s opinion of this out of control Government and its unsustainable spending promises.