An Assembly inquiry has called for more certainty about the future of stamp duty on house sales in Canberra, inquiry chairman Brendan Smyth describing it as "a very strange tax that's been abolished" but "continues to grow and grow".
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The estimates committee report on the 2015-16 budget, tabled in the Assembly on Tuesday, said Chief Minister Andrew Barr had left many questions about stamp duty unanswered.
Four years ago, Mr Barr embarked on a 20-year phase-out of stamp duty, replacing the money through higher rates. But he has backed off a promise to abolish the tax completely, telling estimates in June that while abolition was still his long-term aim, stamp duty would remain "a couple of decades at least".
His medium-term aim was for the ACT to have the lowest stamp duty in the country and the next round of stamp duty cuts would focus on that and on helping low and middle-income people into home ownership.
"There is a policy argument to retain some level of stamp duty over the next couple of decades," Mr Barr told the hearing. "We will need to consider at what level."
The apparent change in policy upset business leaders.
Mr Barr has promised to detail a five-year tax plan in next year's budget.
The committee report said the government's five-year plan should also focus on the promise that the switch from stamp duty to rates was to be revenue neutral, with the Centre for International Economics reporting that so far the increase in rates has out-paced cuts to stamp duty.
Mr Smyth said Canberrans' rates bills continued to increase without the "pay-off" of lower stamp duty, and that they deserved some certainty about taxes.
On the tram, the estimates report calls on the government to reconsider the use of brittle gum as the replacement tree down the centre strip of Northbourne Avenue, pointing to community concern about the tendency for the species to shed limbs without warning, even in calm weather. It also called for a staged replacement, rather than removing all the trees at once.
The committee was split on whether Fluffy homeowners should be given an option to "go it alone" and demolish homes themselves. While the Asbestos Taskforce is allowing owners this option, taskforce head Andrew Kefford told estimates that private demolitions were not the preferred option. Two owners had requested their share of the buyback cost (which they said should be simply dividing the total cost by the number of homes) to do their own demolitions. The requests were rejected.
The Liberal members of the estimates committee said the government should allow home owners to go it alone and set out clear principles to follow in such cases.
The report calls on the government to outline how it will find any remaining properties contaminated with loose-fill asbestos that were missed in previous surveys.
Among other recommendations, the report called for:
- The final cost of the Westside Container Village at the lake, saying evidence suggested an original budget of $800,000 but spending to date of $933,000, with more to come.
- Random drug testing for staff as well as detainees at the Bimberi youth detention centre and the ACT prison.
- No fall-off in the number of public houses, at 10,848 now, but with plans to demolish and replace 1288 flats.
