Ms Marie Hunt:

Invariably, when changes were brought in that affected the property industry, we found out about them on budget day when they were announced but prior to that we would have had no inkling. When some changes were brought in it was only after the event that it was realised they had unintended consequences and they were subsequently repealed. The point we are making is, had there been intervention with property experts, initially, we might have been able to point out that if one removes a mortgage interest rate the likely impact is that rents might start to go up. There was no engagement in testing the unintended consequences of some of these interventions. Some of them were brought in and subsequently brought back out again when it was found that they were not working.