NSW stamp duty abolition important housing ‘jigsaw piece’: Labor

NSW Labor leader Chris Minns announced on Monday (9 January) that the party is planning to ditch — or at least reduce — stamp duty for 95 per cent of first home buyers hoping to get onto the property ladder soon.

The Labor strategy, which builds upon the current government’s recent stamp duty amendments, would seek to support an additional 46,000 future homeowners over three years by removing stamp duty for a properties up to $800,000.

Speaking at Monday’s (9 January) announcement, the Opposition leader said: “This is an important policy initiative. ABS statistics indicate that the number of approvals for first homebuyers has halved in the last two years.

“It is clearly a crisis when it comes to housing affordability and cost of living for young first home buyers in the New South Wales economy, whether it’s in metropolitan Sydney, but also in the regions who’ve had a massive increase in the costs associated with their housing over the last 10 years, but particularly over the last three years…

“We will increase the thresholds for no stamp duty at all from $650,000 to $800,000 in New South Wales, and a reduced amount from 800,000 to $1 million.

“Now, as I said this is an important initiative it will mean that someone that buys a property for $850,000 in New South Wales will go from paying $33,000 in stamp duty to the New South Wales Government to $10,000 in stamp duty to the New South Wales Government. That reduced amount is important for first home buyers, important for the New South Wales economy.”

Young families in pre-election focus 

The crux of the Opposition’s pitch was that its problem with land tax on the family home has always been that people pay it out of their salary, but it's “rendered against the value of that property”, with property prices over the past 10 years increasing “by 100 per cent,” he explained.

“We've always been worried about the ability to pay, particularly for young families, when it ... comes to this very expensive and very important purchase.”

“So that's the decision between New South Wales labour and the current government.

“We're going to be selling this each day every day between now and the 25th of March [election].

“We believe it's a distinction between what labour values are particularly for Western Sydney and the regions, and what the New South Wales government is proposing.

“It's a targeted tax cut.”

Yet the $772 million idea isn’t without its detractors. NSW state treasurer Matt Kean threw shade on the plan outlining that it would be “kicking first home buyers and excluding them from the property market,” Mr Kean told reporters in response.

“There will be thousands of first home buyers who won’t benefit from this policy in places like Marsden Park, Camden, Bankstown, and Sutherland — they will be locked out of the market,” Mr Kean affirmed.

“We want to give first home buyers choice.”

[Related: NSW launches tool to compare stamp duty v property tax]