Shadow Minister for Housing, Chris Hartcher, today condemned the Iemma Labor Government for continuing to drive the property market into the ground with slow land release and high taxes.

“The NSW property market is continuing to decline with new Housing figures released yesterday (ABS 8731.0) showing NSW new homes approvals have declined by another 3.8% on last month and new units fell by 1%”, said Chris Hartcher.

“This latest drop in new home and unit approvals is the seventh month in a row NSW has continued to decline.

It is a telling sign of the incompetence of the Iemma Labor Government when other States face the same interest rate rises that NSW faces and yet they still manage to stay ahead of NSW on all the major housing indicators (VIC –0.9%, QLD –1.9%, SA 0.4% and WA 0.2%).

“The impact of high taxes and almost non existent land release is still having a massive effect on new home sales. The housing markets in other States remain buoyant. Only in NSW, the highest taxing State in Australia, is the housing market suffering”, said Mr Hartcher.

“In combination with the massive amounts of red tape NSW builders and developers are forced to wade through, these Government policies are simply killing the property market again and again.

“It’s almost dead and the Government are determined to ensure it stays dead”, said Chris Hartcher.

“It’s almost as if the Labor Party has some sort of bizarre anti-property policy buried in a filing cabinet somewhere.

“When, without the help of the Government, the property industry boomed, the Government wasted the extra revenue gained through property taxes.

“Now they have a chance to revive it, by reducing development contribution levies and increasing land release but they won’t. It is time for the Premier Morris Iemma to step in and make a concerted effort to boost NSW housing affordability, “Mr Hartcher said.