By BELINDA GIARDINO
THE Urban Development Institute of Australia (Victoria) has called for taxes collected from new blocks of land to be put back into local infrastructure, such as improving choked roads.
Executive director Tony De Domenico said on an average block of $199,000, taxes and charges across the three levels of Government came to $46,200, according to figures by Charter Keck Cramer for 2011.
Mr De Domenico said that Wyndham was a forgotten place and not politically important to the government.
He believes too much emphasis is being placed on environmental issues, like protecting the Golden Sun Moth, rather than considering other aspects of the community.
“We’ve got to have social and economic thinking, not just environmental,” Mr De Domenico said.
He says there was a way of doing all three, saying the money collected from the taxes on blocks would be better spent on infrastructure, both for the people living in the areas and for the local economy.
“Wyndham’s population has grown 7.8 per cent over the last year, Melton 5.8 per cent, and the unemployment rate in the West is 7.6 per cent, higher than other areas,” Mr De Domenico said.
He said he believed infrastructure should be built first, and then people would follow.
Mr De Domenico said other states should follow the infrastructure bond concept used in New South Wales.
“What is stopping Victoria from improving infrastructure like a second West Gate Bridge or more railway stations, is a fear of borrowing from the people we have elected,” he said.
He called for greater vision to build something today which would cost less now than later on, and recouping costs through the rates system.
