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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2004 Week 09 Hansard (Wednesday, 18 August 2004) . . Page.. 3821 ..

the rental market, people who are trying to move into the ACT housing market, are actually going to see the situation getting a little bit harder if this legislation in this form is passed. I agree that we do need to look at how we better share the load of the cost of public and community housing and that we do need to find ways to make sure that there is the right amount of public and community housing for the demand in the community.

Most people in housing distress spend years on the waiting list for public and community housing, but I do not think the answer is to force the property development sector to give the government a huge chunk of each new development. I think we need to look more at how we can spread the cost burden more fairly. I actually welcome this debate because it provides us with the opportunity to look more closely at this issue. Ms Tucker has put forward one idea. It is not an idea I can support but at least it is an idea that is out there, that is getting debated.

A couple of weeks ago I was talking about the idea of getting ACT Housing actually to use their resources to build more houses as opposed to competing on the open market with other people who were trying to buy houses, to get ACT Housing, maybe in conjunction with the Land Development Agency, to start building their own so that we could look at how to address the housing shortage that way. I thank Ms Tucker for bringing this debate forward. I support her intention but, considering the practicality of how this legislation would work, I cannot support it.

MRS CROSS (10.51): Mr Speaker, I rise today to comment on the reasons for my choice not to support this bill. I am very much aware of the problems that the territory faces with respect to affordable housing.

The Chief Minister recently raised further concern over the issue by his collaboration with student groups over the availability of student accommodation. However, students are not the only concern here. Families and individuals across the territory struggle to pay for a roof over their heads, especially younger families. Whether they are renting or purchasing their homes, dwelling prices continue to move out of reach of many in our community. When, in the territory, average housing and rental prices are growing at multiples of average weekly ordinary time earnings growth, we simply and quite obviously do not have a sustainable situation. With housing affordability in the ACT in decline it is no wonder that household debt levels are on the rise.

However, by agreeing with Ms Tucker’s intention, I do not necessarily agree with her method. I note that industry inclusionary zoning was one of the recommendations of the report of the ministerial task force on affordable housing. However, expecting the development industry to bear the costs of a problem that needs to be tackled on a number of fronts is not the way to go.

This bill does not make mention of the number of planning concessions or bonuses mentioned in the report that could be utilised to effectively deliver affordable housing. We cannot be too gung-ho in the implementation of an affordable housing scheme in the private sector without the appropriate measures to help developers cope with the impacts of such a scheme. That would be irresponsible and unfair. Government needs to cooperate with the private sector to bring about mutual gains. I suggest we head back to the drafting room and take these recommendations from the report more seriously and view them in their entirety, not in a cursory manner.

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