Gleeso Confidential: The most stupid decision of Palaszczuk’s team will hurt Qld
The most hare-brained, stupid, appalling decision of the Palaszczuk government has just emerged, writes Peter Gleeson.
Peter Gleeson
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In a field as big as the Melbourne Cup, the most hare-brained, stupid, appalling decision of the Palaszczuk government has just emerged, and it will have far-reaching impacts for the prosperity of Queensland.
Whoever signed off on the great land tax heist, both the bureaucrat and the relevant minister, should be banished from Queensland forever, tarred and feathered, never to set foot across the border ever again.
Here’s how the new land tax levy works. From June next year, the Palaszczuk government is raising property tax on investors who also own land interstate.
The new tax will not affect investors who own land in Queensland only, however, if you own a property in another state or territory, you will be handed a bigger bill.
For example, in a case study provided by the government, say you own a property with a land value of $745,000 in Queensland and $1,565,000 worth of land in Sydney – not uncommon at all – your land tax bill will go from $1950 to $8422.
The government has passed new laws, which now allow it to bill you for the total value of the investors’ land holdings.
Property experts say the “double tax’’ will reduce home values and force up rents.
Economic experts say that it’s a “money grab’’ designed to bolster the government’s coffers at a time when it is trying to deal with a $100bn debt.
The problem is it will come back and bite the government on the bum as interstate investors abandon Queensland.
It’s certainly a disincentive for investors in the southern states to buy Queensland property, and maybe that’s all part of this peculiar and wider plan, to drive down prices to make housing more affordable.
Maybe it’s just another extension of Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk’s Covid-19 plan that “Queensland hospitals are just for Queenslanders’’.
Now, it’s Queensland houses are just for Queenslanders. It takes that xenophobic, jingoistic State of Origin mentality that the Premier plays on so heavily to a whole new level.
Treasurer Cameron Dicksaid before the last election there’d be no new taxes. Except of course for mining companies, corporate bookies and now people investing in Queensland property. Is it constitutional? Surely a smart lawyer would tear it apart in the High Court.
Doesn’t the Constitution’s key mandate suggest free trade between the states and territories?
It reinforces the notion that this government will do anything, say anything, to raise extra cash because it needs to keep feeding the addictive, bloated and ever-expanding public service bureaucracy.
This is the same corpulent public service that pays union fees to the same unions that donate huge amounts to the Labor Party to be re-elected. Did somebody say Ponzi scheme?
It is bad policy from a government that now doesn’t even pretend to govern with competence, ethics and morals.
They pretend to care, yet with failings in health, integrity, waste, juvenile justice, the economy and now the property industry, they simply don’t.
