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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2003 Week 13 Hansard (25 November) . . Page.. 4569 ..

MS TUCKER (continuing):

as saying that it should be at least 10 per cent. I note that the report has not clearly defined affordable housing per se. It has operated on a definition of "affordability".

The Affordability Housing Research Consortium, for instance, does define more clearly what affordable housing is, on the ground. The consortium, which reported in September 2001, had a cross-sector membership including ACOSS, the Housing Industry Association, the Property Council of Australia and the Australian Council of Trade Unions, among others. So their conclusions should be taken very seriously.

The consortium said:

In other words, the consortium decided that the only guaranteed way to increase the stock of affordable housing is to increase public housing and community housing. The other mechanisms, to do with trying to tweak private investment to encourage lower rent, may have some effect, but it cannot guarantee that the people who are having difficulties will get access to that housing.

It is also difficult to require private housing to be maintained as low-income housing. In capitalism, housing is one of the fundamental assets that most people either purchase or want to purchase. That goal can conflict with community service or the greater public equity for the private individual investor even more so, than for large companies. Affordable housing is only going to be a dream if we wait for the private market to do it of its own volition. That is not how capitalism works in general.

So it is disappointing that both the affordable housing taskforce report and the government response have not grasped the nettle on the need to increase supply. It is not enough to hope that an unstructured, unrestricted land release program simply increasing the amount of land available will deal in any way with the most difficult problems of people unable to afford secure, safe and appropriate housing.

This is particularly concerning and difficult to believe when the new Land Development Agency's purpose is focused on commercial objectives. One of the models for providing affordable housing that was canvassed in the taskforce report was the New South Wales land development agency, Landcom, which was originally established with a "strong social purpose and retains a statutory responsibility to sell land at the lowest viable price, although in recent years it has operated with a more commercial orientation".

This is a political change, not a change in what works. The problem, of course, we are left facing is government resources. However, as the Treasurer pointed out in a letter to me, the question of resources is a question of priorities-I am paraphrasing here but that was basically the point. We are seeing, I think, a distinct failure of government to grasp the need to invest in what we all recognise is a fundamental for many other aspects of life.

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