Claims by the Property Council’s Queensland branch that local governments were blind to the difficulties of first home buyers were offensive and baseless, Local Government Association of Queensland Executive Director, Greg Hallam, said today.
“It’s about time the property lobby told it like it is – developers want a bigger handout. Apparently, $10 billion annually of tax concessions, grants, subsidies, infrastructure charge discounts (as much as 30 per cent) and rate concessions on un-subdivided land isn’t enough,” Mr Hallam said.
“Times are tough and you would be hoping these avaricious con-merchants would not be wanting to dig further into the public purse to maintain their margins,” he said.
“The LGAQ calls on the property lobby to nominate which group of ratepayers they would like to slug with higher rates to underpin their profits – old age pensioners, battling families, single mothers, or perhaps the disabled.
“But they would not have the intestinal fortitude to do that - hiding behind a veneer of faux interest in the plight of first home owners. Their mantra is confected and disingenuous – and seen for what it is by those in the know. Ten thousand million dollars of annual taxpayers’ and ratepayers’ money never results in cheaper property. The simple truth is that it lines the pockets of the development industry.
“There is nothing wrong with making a dollar or developing land – the LGAQ is not a member of the mud hut or the zero-growth brigade. But we know rhetoric when we hear it, smell self-interest a mile off and know spin when we read it. Welfare is welfare - even when developers ask for it.
“The development lobby will never be taken seriously while it confuses genuine research with anecdote, or selected statistics for robust empirical data. Every time developers cry wolf they just dig a bigger hole for their credibility - they are laughed out of what is a serious debate with the economic policy makers at all levels of government,” Mr Hallam said.
“Get real guys, make a meaningful contribution to the debate, put the begging barrel away, deal in fact, not fiction. Then - and only then - will you be taken seriously,” he said.
