Subjects: Brookfield Show; First Home Owners scheme; housing industry; Ryan by-election
E&OE................................
[Tape begins]
PRIME MINISTER:
I'm sorry, I haven't heard...
CARROLL:
All right, I'm sorry, Prime Minister, the key issue is that they believe that their contestants, that their show in two months time are going to be forced to declare that they are hobbyists and not professionals, children as young as four years of age entering art competitions and other competitions and also pony riding.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, I've been told by the Tax Office that that's not true. And I will arrange for somebody to be in touch with them during the day to confirm the information that I have received. I mean, I have a note to my office from the Australian Taxation Office that says the ATO advises that it can see no reason for a show to require all participants in show competitions to sign declarations for tax purposes. School children and preschoolers will not be registered for GST, nor entering the show as part of carrying on an enterprise. And that's come from a senior officer in the Taxation Office.
CARROLL:
All right. Well, Andrew Stewart, who's the President of the Show Society at Brookfield, which is in the centre of the Ryan electorate, he says they've been dealing with the Tax Office on this for some considerable time.
PRIME MINISTER:
I'm sorry, but I can only read to you, I can only tell you the advice and the Tax Office would not give me this advice, I'm sure, if it were wrong. What I will do is I will arrange for somebody in my office to ring the gentlemen you mentioned today to discuss the matter further. But this is the advice that I have received and I have no reason to doubt it. I can understand the gentlemen raising it and we investigated it and this is the response that I have received. Okay.
CARROLL:
I'm sure, Prime Minister, they'll be certainly glad for that clarification. By the way, what will you exactly be doing in Brisbane or Ryan?
PRIME MINISTER:
I'm visiting a retirement village in the electorate of Ryan and I'm also going to visit a small factory and I will be fulfilling a number of other functions. I have just, in Canberra, announced a major increase from 7,000 to 14,000 in the value of the first home owner's grant for people buying new houses. And this will last, this increase will last from today until the 31st of December this year and it will be of enormous additional benefit to people who are buying a new home and it will give an enormous additional stimulus to the housing industry. The housing industry contracted quite severely over the past few months. And it was clear from the national accounts on Wednesday that that was the area of greatest weakness in the economy. In fact, what the accounts showed was that many areas of the economy were performing extremely well. There had been a dip in the housing industry and we've decided to do something effective and immediately about it.
CARROLL:
This issue was raised on our programme last week and with the housing industry and also some independent builders who told us that they were coming to see you about this at a meeting last week in Canberra. How much of a boost is this short, sharp, shock, new home building.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, it's not a shock. It's a stimulus. Don't use the word shock.
CARROLL:
Well, maybe it's a shock to those people who are now eligible.
PRIME MINISTER:
No, no, it's a very beneficial thing. It will be an enormous boost.
CARROLL:
Yeah, but it's only a short-term boost, though, isn't it?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, the housing industry says it will generate demand for 24,000 jobs in the industry. It can bring forward 16,000 commencements. And the reason why it has a time limit is that there is already an upswing underway, a small upswing underway, because of the interest rate reductions and this will accelerate the upswing and it will bring about an immediate and very positive response. The housing industry is not limited to what's required in the timber and the bricks and the mortar and the tiles but it also generates great demand for hardware and for whitegoods and all the associated industries - they do very well when the housing industry's doing very well and they don't do so well when the housing industry's not doing so well. And this is a very welcome boost. I mean, $14,000 for a new home, it will cover the deposit, particularly for people in outer metropolitan areas and provincial areas where the value of land is a little lower than it is in some of the closer, settled metropolitan parts of Australia. So, it really, overall, is a very significant boost for the industry and I know it will be widely welcomed. I did see people from the Housing Industry Association and the man you're referring to could well have been one of the men who put a very strong case to me. And then I waited to have a look at the national accounts and having seen them I decided that the Government had to do something and that's what I announced this morning.
CARROLL:
All right, Prime Minister, thank you and enjoy your day in Brisbane.
PRIME MINISTER:
Thank you.
[Ends