Ruth Webber (WA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I wonder how much those opposite know about how much of the fees captured by state governments actually pay for providing the infrastructure and the planning required to actually release those blocks of land. In my home state, the fees collected—including stamp duty—only make up 39 per cent of the cost of releasing that land. So 61 per cent of the cost of releasing that average block of suburban land is borne by the state taxpayers. It is not actually recovered in fees; the fees are not the significant issue.

When we look at housing affordability, we are not saying it is just the cost of land; it is also the cost of housing. I do not know anyone who says, ‘It is only the cost of land that is the issue.’ It is actually a house and land package that is the issue. And this government is doing nothing about it.

You cannot get away from the figures. We have looked at the percentage of average weekly incomes that are now spent paying off household mortgages. The latest figures that we have from the HIA-Commonwealth Bank quarterly review of housing affordability from June 2006, show—and there is no escaping this for the federal government—that first home buyers entering the market would have to commit at least 27.9 per cent of their incomes towards mortgage repayments. That is first homebuyers. That is a significant amount of their income that they would have to commit to just attempting to live the great Australian dream of owning their own home. (Time expired)

Question agreed to.