Page 3107 - Week 09 - Thursday, 13 October 2022

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It is also pretty disgraceful, and I do not know what Mr Braddock is going to say today. But for him to say, as he has previously, that having more police will result in more crime. He has made that statement in this place before. That has not been received well by the police I think it is fair to say. The thought that we would have more police on the street, that leads to more crime. It might actually lead to more offenders being apprehended. I would agree with that. but it is not itself a cause of crime.

It is also unbelievable that Minister Gentleman refuses to allow more police on our streets. I remind you that this is a government, and you may have been the minister back then, Madam Speaker, I cannot quite recall, in 2013—it might have been you, who cut $15 million of funding from the ACT Policing budget. They are still paying the price of that.

It is quite extraordinary members that we are the only party in this place that truly respects our police and will give them the support they need. Our city is facing very difficult, complex, and dangerous challenges. We have been through some very tough years. (Second speaking period taken.)

It is a difficult dangerous job. We should be doing everything we can to support our police. But it is evident that this government is not.

MR PARTON (Brindabella) (5.34): I rise to speak briefly in this debate on a number of issues under the JACS umbrella, and among them, residential tenancy changes. These are the changes that the Real Estate Institute, many private investors, a number of community advocates and of course the Canberra Liberals believe will make rental properties harder to come by and more expensive, and ultimately will lead to some extremely bad outcomes.

There are around 12,000 public and social housing properties in the rental pie here in the ACT and more than 40,000 private rentals. I think that too often this government forgets that the vast majority of rental properties in the ACT—if we consider the whole pie, 80 per cent of them—are provided by private investors.

Without sufficient private investors in the market, the entire market collapses, in that there are just not enough homes for renters. They are forced to either become homeless or move somewhere else. Ultimately there are a bunch of renters who are planning to buy. So some of them may be able to get on that home ownership merry-go-round themselves, but the changes that are being mooted impact so heavily on those at the lower end who will never buy, who will never buy, who will always be renting. Some because they choose that, and some because they do not have the means to buy and never will. They are the ones who are impacted.

When it comes to the causes of rental affordability in the ACT—I wanted to refer to some comments made by Tom Leahy on the Riotact last month. Now I do not know who Tom is, I have no idea. He commented on one of the stories on Riotact late in September. I liked the quote. I do not know if I will contact Tom and let him know I that have read out his quote.


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