Speakman’s Plans to blow budget by $700 million
New Treasury analysis has revealed the Liberals-Nationals’ irresponsible plans to amend the Government’s legislation to have both First Home Buyer and land tax schemes run concurrently could blow a $700 million hole in the NSW Budget.
The NSW Government introduced legislation this week to create a simpler, fairer stamp duty concession scheme which will ensure five out of every six future first home buyers pay no tax or a reduced rate. The Coalition is attempting to amend the legislation to keep both their forever tax on family homes as well as Labor’s fairer, simpler scheme to lift the thresholds for a tax concession.
Under the changes to the First Home Buyers Assistance scheme, people who buy their first home for up to $800,000 will not have to pay stamp duty, and people buying their first home for less than $1m will pay a reduced rate of stamp duty. This means about 84% or 5 out of every 6 first home buyers will receive a boost to help them compete with investors and established homeowners. The legislation will close the former government’s land tax scheme on 30 June 2023.
Under Mr Speakman’s reckless scheme, a first homebuyer with $800,0000 to spend will receive half of the assistance that is directed to someone with $1.4 million to spend. Labor’s proposal is targeted to maximise the support for the first homebuyers that really need it and it will be done as part of our fully funded election commitments. The former Government left the people of NSW with the largest debt in NSW history. Under 12 years of Liberals and Nationals debt rose from $22.5 billion to $187.5 billion. A further $7 billion of unfunded programs and budget pressures have been identified since the election.
Treasurer Daniel Mookhey said:
“This is the kind of reckless spending from the Opposition that saw the people of NSW recently give them the boot.
“New South Wales is already facing at least $180 billion worth of debt left by the former government and we have recently discovered $7 billion in hidden costs in the budget.
“We are committed to treating the public with the respect they deserve and that is why we are introducing a simpler, fairer system that best helps the first home buyers most in danger of being squeezed out of the housing market.
“We need to make the tough decisions now to get the budget back in order, not kick the problem down the road as the former government did.”