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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2003 Week 4 Hansard (3 April) . . Page.. 1375 ..

MS DUNDAS (continuing):

The task force proposed the widening of stamp duty concessions and the scaling of property value thresholds according to the number of bedrooms in each dwelling. It suggested that income thresholds for concessions be calculated with reference to the income required to purchase median-priced properties. It proposed that a rental guarantee scheme be introduced to help low and middle income earners who experience discrimination or other problems in the private rental market.

These are all incredibly interesting ideas and I would hate to see them drop out of sight after all the work the task force did to come up with them. It is important that we are having a debate about what to do with the recommendations of the task force. We cannot just let this be another report that sits on the shelf.

Members of the community worked hard on this report. People from a whole range of non-government organisations took time out from work they were doing in an already stressed environment to contribute to the Affordable Housing Task Force in the hope that there would be some real changes and some real ways of addressing the problems that our community is facing.

I particularly would like to see the government propose some solutions to the majority of people in housing stress who are in the private rental market. The task force did suggest some tax and rate concessions for landlords who provide affordable housing. These measures may well make investment for rental more attractive, to the point that the supply of dwellings increases. But it may also be necessary to revisit the land tax system that currently targets private landlords and makes it less attractive to invest in rental properties, particularly if capital gains taper off, as predicted by many property market analysts.

I note that the government sees the capping of rates increases as an appropriate measure. Perhaps we should also be thinking about capping rent rises, if this can be done without detrimentally affecting the overall supply of rental dwellings. We also need to look at the way that rental properties are maintained. We have a lot of schemes in the ACT, such as the solar hot water rebate, that are designed to help make our houses more environmentally friendly. But these cannot be taken up by private renters because they cannot afford to improve a house that they may not be living in in the next three months.

Unless we can provide some incentives to landlords to make their houses warmer and safer, so that people who rent are not paying extraordinary electricity bills and living in houses where they cannot get insurance, then we are not addressing the affordable housing issue. Affordable housing is not just about rent. It is about all the other expenses that go with living in a house-expenses such as electricity, rates, water bills and security bills. This all needs to be looked at. We also need some information from the government about the direction they are going to take to help address these issues.

Hence, I strongly support Ms Tucker's amendment, which calls on the government to prepare a response to the Affordable Housing Task Force papers. I am quite concerned that the government is not planning to prepare a response. Without a formal response, housing advocates and the broader community will have no guidance on which recommendations the government supports and, therefore, no idea what to expect from the government in the way of action to alleviate our housing crisis.

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