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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2003 Week 4 Hansard (3 April) . . Page.. 1377 ..

MRS DUNNE (continuing):

there will be fewer places to build houses. There would be a situation of the supply of houses going down and the demand for houses rising.

As the minister said in this place yesterday, there is a general demand for 2,300 new dwellings a year. If that demand keeps rising and the supply of blocks on which we can build dwellings does not rise at the same rate, there will be pressure on the cost of housing. Those pressures will apply no matter whether the housing is at the middle level, the first home buyer's level, or the community housing level; they will apply to private rental and government rental. Draft variation 200 is one of the things that has the potential to militate against affordable housing.

The opposition supports Ms Tucker's amendment. I do not think, in the six years or so that I have worked in and around this place, that I have ever come across a government report where the government has declined to come up with a government response. We have a four-volume report that goes to all sorts of aspects of issues that relate to housing affordability. There are 46 recommendations in the report and this government does not propose to respond to them.

What message does that send to the community? First of all, it says to all the members of the task force who are listed in the front of the report, "Why did you bother?"Also, it sends a message to people involved in the community who will be asked to sit on boards and committees, and make recommendations to this government. They will ask themselves, "Why on earth would I bother in the future? Why would I bother?"The message that ACT Labor is sending to this community is that this is window dressing. It is a matter of "Gee, we've done something about housing affordability. We've produced a four-volume report."A four-volume report is not enough.

We now have to have action. We have to have a government which is prepared to come in here and say whether or not they agree or disagree with some of these recommendations. Some of these recommendations are pretty challenging, but they have to be addressed.

In respect of housing affordability, what are the barriers to first home buyers being more self-sufficient and getting out of the rental market and into the private ownership market? At the moment, the barriers are the fact that it will cost them, at the very least, $110,000 to buy a block of land. You then have the cost of putting a house on top of it, and you are looking at $200,000 bare minimum for a shoebox.

Mr Wood: Good luck if you get one for $200,000.

MRS DUNNE: The very bare minimum. Mr Wood is the minister responsible for housing. As his colleague, Mr Corbell, was very quick to say, "I'm not responsible for housing affordability. Mr Wood is."All Mr Wood can say is good luck to them. That is not good enough. We have to find strategies that help people who can afford to enter the private housing market. This will relieve the stress on the government rental market, so that people in need will have access to reasonable housing.

As Ms Dundas says, we need to address a whole lot of things that have come out of this report. This government has sent a message that "We don't care what is in this. We are not going to respond. We are not even going to do the people who gave up time and

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