Annastacia Palaszczuk kills off Treasurer Cameron Dick’s land tax

Annastacia Palaszczuk has overturned Cameron Dick’s controversial policy.

Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk has axed Treasurer Cameron Dick’s land tax policy. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Tertius Pickard

Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk has overruled her Treasurer and scrapped his controversial land tax after unrest in her government and dissent from her interstate counterparts.

Cameron Dick had staunchly defended his policy for nearly a year against increasing criticism from the property industry and the state opposition, but when the NSW, Tasmanian and Northern Territory governments said they would not co-operate, Ms Palaszczuk stepped in.

Her office said she made the decision to shelve the tax – which was passed into law with other revenue measures in June with the support of the Liberal National Party – after meeting other ­premiers on Thursday night ­before national cabinet.

“It does rely on the goodwill of other states and if we can’t get (that) additional information, I will put that aside,” Ms Palaszczuk said on Friday after the national cabinet meeting.

A spokesman for Mr Dick said: “The Treasurer stands by everything he’s said about land tax, but of course he accepts the decision the Premier has made after talking to other leaders.’’

But The Weekend Australian can reveal Ms Palaszczuk had ­decided to axe the tax before she went to Canberra after disquiet in her cabinet and Labor caucus, and blaming her interstate counterparts was “the agreed pathway out”.

Mr Dick announced the change in December when delivering the mid-year fiscal and economic review, saying it would close a loophole in Queensland’s “generous” land tax system.

Under the old system, a person with taxable landholdings (which exclude a person’s home) of $1m in Queensland would pay $4500 in land tax. Another investor with $600,000 in taxable land in Queensland and $400,000 in NSW would pay only $500 in land tax in Queensland and no NSW land tax.

“This inequity, or loophole, will be addressed by amending the current land tax arrangements to account for the value of land held interstate when assessing taxpayers’ land tax liability,” mid-year review documents state.

NSW Premier Dominic Perrottet had made his objections to the land tax policy known to Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Gary Ramage

Under Mr Dick’s new land tax system, a total national taxable land value would be calculated for each Queensland landholder. So an individual with $600,000 in taxable land in Queensland and $400,000 in NSW would pay $2700 in land tax in Queensland, compared to $500 under the old system.

Queensland Treasury estimated it would generate $20m in the first financial year. But when other states said they would not provide land value information to Queensland, the plan became untenable.

A spokesman for Mr Dick said the issue of an aggregate land tax for Queensland had been raised with his interstate counterparts at Board of Treasurers’ meetings in May, July and August last year and February this year.

Opposition Treasury spokesman David Janetski said it was an “embarrassing back down” for the Treasurer and showed the policy was “poorly planned and modelled”.

Queensland Property Council executive director Jen Williams said it was the right decision to shelve the interstate land tax, “given its expected impact on rental affordability and investor sentiment”.

“As details emerged of how the new tax would be implemented, it became clearer just how untenable it would be,” Ms Williams said.

“The complexity of the tax and its reliance on the self-disclosure of individuals and data-sharing of other states reinforces this plan should be completely scrapped, and not just put on the shelf until a future day.”