SPARE a thought for those people caught up in the State Government’s Growth Area Infrastructure Contribution (GAIC) that is effectively a development land tax at the wrong end of the equation.

People who put money into land thinking they were building a superannuation for their retirement are now faced with seeing their long-term investments go to prop up the government and developers.

This makes me wonder how much notice we should take of State Government and local government planning.

Several years ago I attended a press conference in Melbourne held by the then Minister for Planning Mary Delahunty who announced that the 2030 Urban Growth Boundary (UBG) would be put in place under strict legislation.

This, she said, was to confine development, to prevent further urban sprawl, to create and protect green areas, and that the boundary would remain in place until 2030.

Ms Delahunty said there was ample space within the boundary to build enough housing for the stated period.

And of course there is.

But developers want the easy and profitable pathway, so bang goes that ministerial promise.

I didn’t have a view on whether or not we should have a UBG.

But former Liberal premier Dick Hamer said during the 1980s that we should have one and drew the line.

Ms Delahunty, as Labor Minister for Planning, brought in legislation to affix it.

After the press conference I suggested to her, in my perhaps cynical way, that the boundary was rubbery and would be changed at the whim of developers.

“Absolutely not,” she said.

She said it was legislated and it would take legislation to change the alignment.

I really didn’t believe it would stay in place and it is now open to application to change on all sorts of spurious reasons and will go on being changed.

But why do aging superannuants have to be slugged with this proposed GAIC of $95,000 a hectare on land brought into the UBG from 2009 and on.

Placing this tax on land before owners can sell means it will be most unattractive to anyone except developers who can get their heads together and ‘not pay too much’.

People will be faced with having to pay a tax on their properties that amounts to more than they will be able to sell them for.

If they have a mortgage they will be bankrupted.

This tax must not under any circumstances be levied before the point of sale and must if it has to happen be placed on subdivided allotments after they have been granted building block status.