Page 3257 - Week 10 - Tuesday, 18 October 2022
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medium-income Canberrans. This includes examination of the Affordable Home Purchase Scheme, delivery of future and ongoing actions under the ACT Housing Strategy and with the aim of delivering 600 affordable rentals under the parliamentary and governing agreement.
Working closely with the Chief Minister, the ACT government is working to grow the build-to-rent sector and drive affordable housing outcomes, while also increasing the amount of rental housing stock in the territory more broadly. I will continue to work across government, and with the broader housing sector, to implement the ACT Housing Strategy, examine a range of programs that are available and work with industry to develop projects and ideas that best support the government’s Housing Strategy.
I am excited that, under the new federal Labor government, a number of commitments have been made and will begin to be delivered before the end of this year, and early into next year, across the country to ensure that more and more people get into housing that suits their needs. This is not an issue that the ACT is immune from. I would have to say that in the ACT we are punching well above our weight as far as our commitments to public housing are concerned. We continue to have the highest per capita housing per head in the country, second to the Northern Territory. I am enormously proud of that, and I want to see that continue.
I want to respond to a couple of comments that Mr Parton made, with regard to housing in the ACT, and whether or not we are doing the work and providing housing for people who need it. We are, but things have got worse. That is true; that is a fact. There is no hiding from that, and nobody is hiding from that. That is why I have a lot of hope that the federal Labor government will be able to deliver on their commitments and that it will make a difference here in the ACT for people who need housing.
In acknowledging the federal Labor government and their work in this space, the fact is that they have set up a national housing supply and affordability council. With respect to providing even a council of people meeting together, we did not have that kind of commitment from the former government. Having a council of ministers that will also consider planning and supply issues, and affordability issues on top of that, and delivering on—
Mr Parton interjecting—
MS BERRY: It is no good; I cannot hear what you are saying. I know you are saying something and it is probably not very nice, but I cannot hear you through the—
MADAM SPEAKER: I would not pay attention to it, Ms Berry.
MS BERRY: Go ahead. I will leave it with you, Madam Speaker, to pull him up, because I cannot hear through the perspex what they are saying. I will keep talking.
I am very hopeful about working with the new federal government in that space, as a member of the council and as the minister responsible for housing in the ACT, on some of the commitments that they have made so far, and providing opportunities
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