Government should not be a part owner in your home

By Mark Coulton, MEMBER FOR PARKES

Last week I spoke in Parliament in opposition to Labor’s Help to Buy Bill, which will allow first home buyers to purchase a property with just a two per cent deposit. The shared equity scheme will effectively see the government become a 40 per cent part owner of your house.

There are so many unanswered questions around how this will work – what if you want to renovate the house or sell it later on?

I’m not opposed to schemes that help people get into homes – home ownership is an important aspiration that will help secure families’ futures. However, the Coalition’s proposal of allowing people to use part of their superannuation – their own money – for a deposit to get into the housing market is a much more sensible solution.

There are a lot of other issues that the government could be dealing with that would stimulate the construction and purchase of homes – such as encouraging more young people to take up an apprenticeship so that we’ve got the skilled workforce to build more homes, or opening up Crown Land so that our towns can expand – without setting up a scheme where lying next to you in bed is the Federal government as a part owner in your home.

Farmers once again to foot the bill

Our farmers will be the ones to pay for Labor’s biosecurity protection levy which was introduced to Parliament last week.

The levy will charge Australian farmers for the biosecurity costs importers pose bringing their product to Australia, however the bill introduced lacks any detail of the cost to farmers or how the levy will be collected.

Farmers already pay more than their fair share of taxes, and this is just another cost that will ultimately be passed onto consumers at the checkout – further increasing the cost of living for Australian families.