Mr. Katsambanis questions the Premier on the lack of land tax relief for landlords impacted by the Residential Tenancies (COVID-19 Response) Bill 2020, given other states have provided such relief. The Premier acknowledges the concerns and states the government is monitoring the situation and considering further assistance.

AnsweredQoN 242Legislative Assembly
Asked
16 April 2020
Portfolio
Premier

QuestionView source ↗

RESIDENTIAL TENANCIES (COVID-19 RESPONSE) BILL 2020
242. Mr P.A. KATSAMBANIS to the Premier:
I thank the Premier for his answer.
I have a supplementary question.
Given that mum-and-dad property
owners are going to be asked to shoulder a significant burden for quite a long
time, why will the government not at least provide them with land tax relief to
assist them, like most of the other states have already done?

AnswerView source ↗

I
understand that a lot of property investors out there are people on ordinary
incomes who have an investment property that they rent out and negative gear.
Clearly, there is a requirement for their tenants to continue to pay rent. That
is the requirement under the law. There is no change to that. The change is
that we will legislate that there cannot be an increase in rent and we are also
going to legislate about evictions. As the Attorney General will outline, this
is the nationally agreed approach. We are, obviously, going to watch it
closely. We do not want to hear any suggestion that there be a mass non-payment
of rent, in particular by people who can afford to pay rent. It will be
monitored quickly and, if necessary, we will
bring in further reforms as we go along, if it needs to be tweaked. We are
currently working on issues of assistance. The Expenditure Review Committee and
cabinet will consider that as time goes by.
The SPEAKER : That is the end
of question time.

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