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The Victorian Labor Government presented several amendments to the GAIC bill in the Upper House last week. They are only superficial and do not relate to the "first sale" GAIC trigger point, and therefore do not address our main concerns. Despite the attempts by the government to ride roughshod over parliamentary process and push the bill to a vote, the opposition parties wanted more time to consider the amendments and so voted for an adjournment. The matter will be held over until the next sitting of Parliament on 2nd February. It is unclear if the debate will resume in the Upper House or if it will be automatically referred to the Dispute Resolution Committee as by that time the Bill will have expired.
Here is a brief summary of the proposed amendments:
- A refund facility with a 3 year time limit will apply for land on which GAIC was paid but is later removed from the contribution area. (This is not much help for land that is sold now but not developed for 5, 10 or 20 years.)
- In circumstances where the purchaser of land deducted the GAIC amount from the purchase price (yes the government has finally admitted that the GAIC will be deducted from the purchase price) the taxpayer is taken to be the vendor of that land and so would be the recipient of any applicable refund. This is in direct contradiction to the Government's claims that "developers will now pay the GAIC".
- The premium interest rate applied to GAIC deferrals will be 6%, rather than being set by the Treasurer. So the interest rate payable on deferred GAIC debts will be the market interest rate PLUS 6%.
- The Treasurer no longer needs to approve staged payments over $2 million. Approval still needed by Planning Minister for ALL staged payments.
- The operation of the Growth Areas Authority will no longer be funded by GAIC revenue.
The full Upper House debate is available on Hansard at the links below:
Upper House debate 8.12.09
Upper House debate - members statement
Upper House debate 10.12.09 (At the end of this transcript it says that the matter has been adjourned until 17th December, but it has actually been adjourned until 2nd February)
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