Page 3789 - Week 11 - Thursday, 24 November 2022
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and by the Council on Federal Financial Relations, as well as the housing ministers’ council. The assertion in Ms Lee’s question, in the long preamble, as the Deputy Chief Minister has identified, is incorrect.
Ms Lee: It was a quote from Jim Chalmers.
MR BARR: No, your assertion about what the Deputy Chief Minister is alleged to have said—
Mr Hanson interjecting—
MADAM SPEAKER: Members!
MR BARR: is not the case. On the substance of the question, there are a combination of factors that impact on house prices and land prices. On interest rates, as we have seen, the cost of borrowing is the single largest factor that has impacted. As interest rates rise we are seeing demand fall. An increase in supply will also assist—
Ms Lee: Point of order, Madam Speaker.
MADAM SPEAKER: Minister, resume your seat.
Ms Lee: While it is very interesting to get a lecture from Mr Barr, as always, the question is specifically about a reference to land supply. I ask the minister to be relevant.
MR BARR: That was exactly the point I was making when I was interrupted by the Leader of the Opposition. Supply is indeed part of the equation.
Opposition members interjecting—
MADAM SPEAKER: Members!
MR BARR: That is why the government has increased the forward land supply program, both infill and greenfield, in order to meet the ACT’s record levels of population growth. (Time expired.)
MS LEE: Minister, how do housing affordability policies like build-to-rent address Canberrans’ very high demand for detached housing?
MR BARR: Build-to-rent can come in many different forms. The housing market is a continuum. It is not a series of isolated sub-markets. There is an impact across the entire spectrum of the housing market when there is an injection of additional supply at different levels. The government has been very clear in relation to the balance of new land release.
The opposition position that they took to the last election and the election before was undeliverable, environmental vandalism and would not have improved affordability, because the costs of development in the areas that the opposition were seeking to pursue—
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