Page 1851 - Week 06 - Wednesday, 1 May 1991
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So much, Mr Speaker, for the problems that Mrs Grassby is indicating to us for the provision of housing in the ACT. These facts clearly refute the Opposition's claims that we have a housing crisis at the moment. In fact, it is to the credit of the Territory that housing affordability, as measured by the Real Estate Institute's affordability index, is, as already indicated, better than in any other major city. The Territory is at the forefront of the provision of a wide variety of housing types and densities, thus contributing to reducing housing costs, increasing housing choices and facilitating more efficient use of infrastructure and urban services.
Mr Speaker, we fully support the continuation of joint ventures between government and industry groups to provide affordable house-land packages. They have been going on in the Tuggeranong Valley now since private sector land development commenced, and I would expect that they will continue during the development of the Gungahlin area.
Mr Speaker, I acknowledge that the ACT has experienced a tightening in the private rental market. Much of this, of course, is influenced by the continuing national micro-economic conditions. The Territory can best help by ensuring that adequate land releases and redevelopment opportunities are available. We will all acknowledge in this chamber that the Territory Government can do little to ameliorate the level of interest rates. That, of course, is the responsibility of someone who used to call himself the world's greatest treasurer. I think his halo has slipped a little bit lately, and I guess that the people of Australia in due course will give him his just desserts and he will become an irrelevance, if you like, on the political scene. That is, of course, if he does not manage to roll the little Aussie battler - as he sometimes likes to call himself - in the meantime.
It is therefore pleasing to see - despite the efforts of the world's greatest treasurer, and it has taken him a while to get his act together - that the trend is towards a lowering of interest rates, and not before time. No doubt this has helped underpin the recovery in the first home owner market in Canberra. It is unfortunate that the Treasurer artificially kept those interest rates up much higher, in fact, than was absolutely necessary, and for much longer than I believe the majority of people considered was necessary, particularly those small businesses that are struggling to make ends meet with the increasing interest rates that were applying last year. However, we will ensure that, as demand further picks up, sufficient land continues to be available to avoid the sorts of price escalations that would cause difficulties for first home buyers in the ACT. I think we in the ACT are fortunate in that our leasehold system and the system whereby purchasers of land are required to build within a certain time will continue to ensure that housing stocks are available for the community.
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