Responsibility for Tasmania’s housing crisis sits with the Liberals, yet they refuse to act. Instead, today Peter Gutwein has announced a trickle down style land tax cut for those Tasmanians who are lucky enough to have a second, third or fourth property.
All the while rents continue to soar and Tasmanians are forced to move interstate, just to keep a roof over their heads.
In a monumental, but wholly transparent "look over there", Premier Gutwein has handed a land tax cut to well off property investors. Yet another stunt from a Liberal Government devoid of any meaningful plan to curb the cost of living, or address the housing crisis in Tasmania.
Today’s land tax announcement won’t help to lower rents, as the government falsely claims. It will simply widen the class divide between the haves and have-nots – those who own their home, along with an investment portfolio, and those who spend half their weekly income or more on shelter.
Handing out a Land Tax cut won’t decrease rents. It will only encourage investors to increase their portfolio.
This will be the second round of land tax cuts implemented by the Liberals in the short time since the 2021 election. Peter Gutwein claims this will “further” decrease rents, what world is he living in? Rents have not gone down, they have gone up, since the Liberals’ last round of land tax cuts. This is a fact.
What is needed is regulation of short stay accommodation and rent controls - both moved by the Greens and blocked by the old parties in Parliament - along with building more social and affordable housing.
On the eve of Parliament’s resuming and with Covid rampant in our schools, the Gutwein Government is in disarray. It’s lost two Ministers in just two weeks. Peter Gutwein is clearly making policy on the run to distract from his internal chaos.
This kind of policy making won’t house the homeless, and it won’t even distract from wheels falling off Peter Gutwein’s Cabinet. In the midst of a housing crisis, Tasmania deserves better.