Page 1334 - Week 04 - Thursday, 5 May 2022
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The ACT Greens, it must be remembered, spent years advocating for better living conditions for chickens but fully support a land release policy that is forcing Canberra families to live cramped in high-rise battery cages.
Mr Kikkert also doubled down when she came into this Assembly and said:
Maybe this mentality of calling humans a herd, like a bunch of farm animals, has inspired the Greens’ need to force more Canberra families into tiny apartment battery cages.
I would like to remind this chamber that Mrs Kikkert has a very short memory, because her Facebook page also shows a picture of her high-fiving a well-known Canberra property developer on 18 November, celebrating an apartment development in her electorate. Her post says:
Nightfall structure is complete. Just the fittings to go for the 334 apartments and hello to new neighbours.
Mrs Kikkert was thrilled to see 334 new people enter her electorate, living in an apartment in Belconnen. She was thrilled to high-five a well-known Canberra property developer; stoked, so she was, to go through the tour. I am a big fan of apartments. I live in one myself. I am a big fan of semidetached dwellings. I am a big fan of separate title houses. I am a big fan of housing choice and I am a big fan of the work this government is doing to try to make housing and renting more affordable in this city and to attack this issue at its root cause for some of the poorest. I am not a fan of the one-trick pony policy exercise demonstrated today by the Canberra Liberals. (Time expired.)
MR CAIN (Ginninderra) (5.42): I will touch on some of the extraordinary statements that Greens MLAs in particular have made this afternoon. As shadow planning minister and shadow minister for land management, I wholeheartedly support this motion. I remind members that this motion is calling for a feasibility study. It is not calling for bulldozers to rip across west Tuggeranong; it is calling for a feasibility study. What are you afraid of, Mr Gentleman? Mr Gentleman talked about, and Mr Davis mentioned, a 2016 survey in Tuggeranong. Things have changed since then. Mr Gentleman will not acknowledge the Winton survey, which was of a similar period, saying, “Well, that’s old.” Surely something done at about the same time is also old. Is it not time for a fresh look?
Ms Vassarotti said that nothing has changed since 2016-18, with a few exceptions. One of the exceptions was not that there is a housing affordability crisis. Has that changed since 2016 and 2018? I think so, Ms Vassarotti. What else has changed since that time? Well, we have a new Assembly. That is one thing that has changed. Do we really need to be reminded of what previous assemblies have done? We have a fresh leader, we have a fresh team and we have a different opposition.
Let us have a look at the options that are available for meeting Canberrans’ housing choices. Is that what you referred to then, Minister? I am not quite sure what your vision is for planning in the territory. We have talked about the bush capital and
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