Member for Murray Plains Peter Walsh said the state government’s changes to stamp duty and the first home buyer’s grant which aimed to attract new homebuyers to regional Victoria was a step in the right direction.
Over the weekend the state government announced stamp duty would be axed for properties under $600,000.
The state government also announced that the first home buyer’s grant would be doubled to $20,000 for people building their first house capped to the value of $750,000.
Despite the changes, Mr Walsh said it was only one part of the equation to encourage people to buy their first home.
“There needs to be a supply of land for first home buyers,” Mr Walsh said.
He said people would be encouraged to build their first home only if they had employment in the community.
“It’s about creating opportunities,” he said.
“You need employment and you need to make sure you have the community services people expect like good health services and education.
That’s the key to getting people to come to Swan Hill and stay here.”
Mr Walsh said one of the key factors that prevented people from building in town was the limited number of land blocks available.
“There needs to be a sufficient supply of new developments so these additional grants won’t force up the price of the current blocks of land or houses,” he said.
“One of the issues for a number of years now has been that effectively there was only Tower Hill available.
“However council is close to having the zoning done for the South West Development Precinct (SWDP), which has been a long way coming.”
To read more about this story, grab a copy of Friday’s Guardian (March 3).
