Stamp duty and tax relief feature in Tarzia’s budget reply
Vincent Tarzia delivered his budget in reply speech in the House of Assembly today, criticising the Malinauskas Government’s budget as an “out-of-touch” pitch for re-election.
“One of the worst budgets I’ve ever seen, sir, we got a shrug, literally a shrug,” Tarzia said.
“We got an arrogant, visionless budget from a government, and it seems like they’ve stopped even pretending to care.
“No ambition, no big ideas, just more debt, more excuses and more broken promises.”
Tarzia pointed to ramping, broken hydrogen promises, lack of drought relief and a focus on events over all else as key faults of the Malinauskas Government.
Here’s a wrap-up of what a Tarzia Liberal Government say they would do differently:
Housing
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The Opposition would extend stamp duty relief to first homebuyers buying established homes up to the value of $1 million.
Tarzia said the measure, which is in place in all other states, could save a first home buyer over $45,000.
The Opposition will also waive a $192 mortgage registration fee for first home buyers, which Tarzia said will save young people the cost of their first grocery shop.
Tax cuts and bill relief
The Opposition intends to reduce water bill and GP payroll tax they say have been raised under the Malinauskas Government, along with lifting the payroll tax threshold to support businesses.
They will lift the payroll tax threshold from $1.5. million to $2.1 million in a bid to support small businesses in hiring and training the workforce needed to build more homes.
“Labor promised no new taxes, but as we’ve heard, then, they delivered an $85 average water bill hike for households and introduced a GP payroll tax grab that is making it more expensive, we’ll roll back this pain,” Tarzia said
“We’ll reduce wasteful spending, we’ll cut red tape and will deliver affordable, reliable energy with policies like our home battery scheme, which will save households 1000s in upfront costs. It will push down peak demand. It will help drive down prices for people to ease the cost-of-living crunch.”
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The home battery scheme was introduced under the former Liberal government and had a subsidy amount of $500 per kWh capacity of the home battery, capped at a maximum of $5,000 per system, or $6,000 for concession holders.
Health
As well as cutting payroll tax for GPs, the Opposition will introduce a GP after-hours trial to support GP clinics providing care until 8pm Monday to Friday and from 9am-1pm on Sundays.
The trial will run for two years with the intention of offering routine and preventative care to South Australians outside traditional business hours.
GP clinics will receive a grant of $150,000 per practice per annum to meet additional costs of operating after hours, including staff wages and facility costs.
“We need to do everything we can, everything we can, to keep people out of our hospitals if they don’t need to be there, and this initiative would support that,” Tarzia said.
City development and heritage
The Opposition wants to increase housing supply in the Adelaide CBD, and said they will build homes for more than 25,000 people in the city.
“We want young people to have the option to live close to their workplaces, close to their families, close to universities, close to their communities. Not everyone wants to live an hour away from the city,” Tarzia said.
He said they intend to establish a heritage conservation grants program, which was scrapped by Labor in 2022, and expand it to $2.5 million per year which will allow local heritage building owners to apply for funding to service their buildings.
The Opposition also intends to consolidate a single Heritage Act under one Heritage Minister to simplify the process of listing local and state heritage sites.
Environment
The Opposition will reinstate the Greener Neighbourhoods grant scheme to grow tree canopy by incentivising private landowners to grow urban greenery.
Tarzia said they also intend to pursue World Heritage status for the Adelaide Parklands, and will establish a committee under Green Adelaide to boost biodiversity and grow their open space by 5 per cent by reclaiming unused built areas.
“This way, our Parklands will remain a global treasure for generations to come,” Tarzia said.
