Tax call attacked

Press, 30 April 1981, Page 20

Tax call attacked

! Government Ministers ’ were quick to respond yes- • terday to the call by the ' Leader of the Opposition (Mr i' Rowling) for the reintroduc- ’ tion of a property spcculai 'tion tax. < Mr Rowling advocated the b move in a speech to Wellington Rotarians on Monday. The Minister of Housing (Mr Quigley) said yesterday that this exemplified Labour's “talk first and think later” approach to housing. In the 12 months after the ■ introduction of the tax “retrospectively” in 1973, house prices had increased by 46 per cent and section prices by 51.5 per cent, he said. “We do not need a repeat of this in 1981," he said. “The introduction of the

tax in 1973 led to a withdrawal of properties from the market at a time of high immigration and high demand for bousing, thus forcing up the price of the properties remaining on the market,” he said. Mr Quigley said that the big leap in house and section prices that occurred during the term of the Labour Government was the direct result of the economic and immigration policies followed by that Government. “A return to those policies would not be in the best interests of either first home seekers or home purchasers in general,” he said. He was supported by the Minister of Lands (Mr V. S. Young), who said that figures

clearly showed that the tax had forced up the price of land and buildings by withdrawing properties from the market. “What it did was reduce the number of vendors rather than the stated object of removing the influence of speculators,” Mr Young said. “The facts are that in the three years of a Labour Government, the price of houses increased by 83 per cent, sections by 163 per cent, and farmland by 113 per cent,” he said. Mr Young said that increases. under the present Government had been lower than the rate of inflation and consequently houses, sections, and farmland were cheaper in real terms than previously.