Page 1316 - Week 04 - Thursday, 5 May 2022

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(b) development of greenfields land takes approximately seven to ten years before housing is available, due to a range of factors;

(d) the ACT Government is committed to protecting environmental habitat and ensuring proper environmental assessments are conducted prior to any land release;

(e) the ACT Government is committed to taking action on climate change which, as highlighted by recent IPCC reports, requires less urban sprawl and more high-quality climate-resilient infill along transit corridors that are well-serviced by public and active transport; and

(f) Legislative Assembly Committees are investigating several specific areas of housing and rental affordability, including vacancy rates and the impacts of the platform-based short-term accommodation sector; and

(3) calls on the ACT Government to:

(a) continue a policy of 70 percent urban infill and 30 percent greenfields development;

(b) continue identifying suitable locations for additional medium density development in our inner suburbs; and

Senator Seselja may be right in the initial changes to the National Capital Plan that have been made, but he is being misleading and lacking some detail of what else is required. Under federal and ACT laws we would need to spend some years undertaking environmental and planning studies to ensure that this land is appropriate for development. Even if Senator Seselja manages to have this land sold directly to a private developer mate, they will need to do the same planning studies. In fact, as our chief planner, Mr Ben Ponton, said in a committee hearing just last week, it usually takes seven to 10 years from identifying land potentially suitable for development to houses being built.

Building a new suburb requires environmental studies. These studies often cannot be rushed. Checking whether an endangered species is present during breeding season is usually something that can be done only at a specific time of the year. Our newest suburbs need electricity, water, sewerage and roads. These developments are paid for by ACT taxpayers and ratepayers, and it is on us as the government to ensure that this is value for money, both for the residents of our new suburbs as well as for the rest of the Canberra community. So the ACT government also plans for our new suburbs to have schools, shops and community facilities. Planning for these facilities also takes some time.

The ACT government continues to release land ahead of population growth. We continued to release land when there was a slowdown in the market in 2019. As Mrs Kikkert noted in a hearing just last week, the Auditor-General found that the ACT government had hundreds of blocks of land available for sale over the counter. It proved to be a smart move to have the serviced blocks of land available for people to purchase when they were ready. Once various COVID stimulus measures kicked in,

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