Page 1848 - Week 06 - Wednesday, 1 May 1991
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questions, and I will be lucky if I ever get any, I suppose, if it has anything to do with the Minister. I truly cannot understand why the Housing Minister has not made any comments about the National Housing Strategy in this Assembly. Clearly, the Minister has not understood the significance of the review. As such, this also indicates the Alliance Government's lack of commitment to housing as an area of government policy.
I am particularly pleased to see that the National Housing Strategy will be pursuing the question of how to measure affordability of housing for different groups and household types. However, affordability of housing is not the only aim of the National Housing Strategy. Housing must be affordable; but it must also be housing that people want. For example, if you have read the papers that I am referring to - that is, the Minister and the rest of them over there - then you would be aware that almost 80 per cent of Australian dwellings are single detached dwellings. We must ask ourselves whether that form of housing is appropriate for the wide range of householders in Australia.
Mr Speaker, what the background and issues papers released by the National Housing Strategy show us is that we need to re-examine our housing policy to see how we can: Firstly, maximise the choice of household options available to Australians so that, whatever our life circumstances, housing appropriate to each of us will be available; secondly, ensure that we utilise our housing stock as efficiently as possible; and, thirdly, deliver housing with access to services and employment.
As you can see, Mr Speaker, the National Housing Strategy is all about in-depth policy examination - and I am sure that the Minister would not even understand that - policy reform and political relevancy. This is exactly the opposite of what we are seeing from Mr Collaery as the Minister for Housing in the ACT and this is yet another justification for the criticism that the Alliance Government has failed to address the housing crisis in this Territory.
Let us be very clear that, without continuing improvements in Australia's overall economic efficiency, many Australians would be unable to afford their own housing in the future. However, with continuing micro-economic reform it should be possible to provide housing which most Australians can afford. This, I hope, is an argument that even those opposite can understand - although I doubt it at times, because I do not think they have a brain between them. I hope so, because, if they cannot, then they should not be loitering in this Assembly - I underline that they should not be loitering in this Assembly - because they are certainly not representing the people that they are paid to represent.
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