Editorial: Cameron Dick’s further stumbles on ill-advised land tax

The Treasurer’s response to our questions may be a sign he has finally started running up the white flag on his ill-considered tax change, writes the editor.

Another day and along comes another example of Treasurer Cameron Dick thumbing his nose at those asking for assistance in understanding the tax he is about to impose on landlords, and hence on the renters of Queensland.

The Treasurer’s latest refusal came in the form of a dismissive response to a genuine request from The Courier-Mail for more details about how the government plans to find out which properties are owned by which landlords, seeing as not one other state has so far agreed to share its titles office data with Queensland (with Victoria’s Labor premier Dan Andrews this week even raising data security concerns).

Our reporter asked six legitimate questions, ranging from whether – considering the position of the other states – the relevant data will now have to be sourced manually and if so how much will that cost, to asking for examples of the government having spoken with the other states about the plan – as the Treasurer has claimed happened many times.

Mr Dick’s spokesman responded to the request a full four hours later: “The Treasurer has addressed all these issues on multiple occasions.”

Well, he clearly hasn’t – seeing as the questions referenced statements made by the other states this week.

But maybe this is a sign Mr Dick has finally started running up the white flag on this ill-considered (at least in the current context of the housing crisis) tax change that is now a stinking mess of a policy hanging off the Premier’s neck.

Treasurer Cameron Dick this week. Picture: Sarah Marshall/NCA NewsWire

Based on the responses we have had from the government so far, it is not just an ill-considered change but it was hardly even modelled. How could you possibly as the man responsible for the state’s economy impose a new tax without doing the proper due diligence on its potential impacts? It is arrogant at best, and incompetent at worst.

But we should not be surprised. Because that has become Mr Dick’s modus operandi – to find someone to tax and tax them, without even properly asking what the potential impacts could be. Despite pledging at the last election no new or increased taxes, the Treasurer has already imposed a new hit to online betting agencies and to resources companies – in the hope that people will just wave both away as “just a hit on bookies and miners”.

The Treasurer was clearly hoping it would be the same when it came to “interstate-based property investors”. Problem is, he forgot two things. First, that it is not just cigar-smoking wealthy CEOs from Sydney’s North Shore who own multiple properties across different states. Second, that it is naive in the extreme to think that landlords – in the current market particularly – will not just pass any new tax on their properties on to their tenants.

Mr Dick should have consulted, and done his homework. But he didn’t – just as he failed to do with the bookies and the miners. On that, mining giant BHP has again warned it is rethinking its investment pipeline here because of Mr Dick’s new top royalties tax rate of 40 per cent, that compares to 15 per cent in Canada and Indonesia’s 28 per cent.

BHP Minerals president Edgar Basto told The Australian’s Strategic Business Forum lunch yesterday: “It is logical we will have less to invest in our Queensland operations ... (and) that’s going to have an impact on regional economies, where we support 1700 businesses.”

Well done Treasurer!

RENEWABLES PLAN WELCOME

Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk’s renewable energy plan is a welcome example of vision from a government. For the first time it maps out a way forward for how renewables could deliver the reliable energy that Queenslanders will demand into the future.

While the assumptions made in the plan still need to be tested, at least we have from the Palaszczuk government a rare example of a vision with real detail.

Yes, there are already questions over whether the massive Pioneer-Burdekin pumped hydro scheme will be viable. And yes, it feels a bit communist to have promised jobs in the public sector for everyone who loses theirs in the private energy sector as coal is turned off.

But at least this was – for the first time in a while – more than just another Palaszczuk government glossy brochure packed with reheated announcements.

The transition from the stability of coal to the necessary challenges of renewables is something every government is grappling with.

Well done to this one for trying.

Responsibility for election comment is taken by Chris Jones, corner of Mayne Rd & Campbell St, Bowen Hills, Qld 4006. Printed and published by NEWSQUEENSLAND (ACN 009 661 778). Contact details here