Scott Farlow
Shadow Minister for Planning and Public Spaces
Shadow Minister for Housing
Shadow Minister for Cities
A new report by the Property Council has confirmed that new taxes introduced by the Minns Labor Government is slowing the delivery of homes across NSW.
Labor’s new taxes – the Housing and Productivity Contribution and the Sydney Water Development Servicing Plan (DSP) – are rendering new housing projects economically unviable according to industry.
The ABS’ recent data show that after a year of Labor new dwellings approved from April 2023 to March 2024 have dropped by 5,530 – a fall of 11 per cent. The NSW Planning Performance Dashboard shows that in the nine months since May 2023, there has been a 25% decline in DAs submitted and a 27% fall in DAs determined.
Labor’s $12,000 housing tax on each new home built in Greater Sydney, Illawarra, the Hunter and Central Coast has been confirmed as “a tax on the very thing we are trying to fix,” as warned by industry.
The Liberals and ³Ô¹ÏÍøÕ¾s voted against Labor’s housing tax, rightly stating that the tax would “only act as a disincentive on building”.
Shadow Minister for Planning and Public Spaces, Scott Farlow, says the Minns Labor Government did not listen warnings from industry and now need to admit that their new taxes have contributed to building approvals falling to the lowest level in a decade.
“Only Labor would decide to impose new taxes and drive up the cost of building homes in the middle of a housing crisis. Now the supply of new housing is falling with no end in sight because of Labor’s higher taxes,” Mr Farlow said.
“This is yet another example of the Minns Labor Government arrogant approach to housing, pretending to know better than industry and proceeding with a new housing tax against all the warnings,” Mr Farlow said.
“The Planning Minister last May said his new housing tax ‘will have a negligible impact on the feasibility of development projects’. It is clear Paul Scully was wrong.”
“Industry has stressed that a typical apartment or greenfield housing project is now unviable to deliver today, but will be even more unviable in two years because Labor’s housing taxes are due to increase. Under Labor, fewer new homes are now under construction and more buyers and renters searching for properties that simply won’t exist.”
“The Minns Labor Government needs to reverse course and lower the taxation burden to build new housing supply or else any ambition to increase housing supply will fail,” Mr Farlow concluded.
