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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2004 Week 09 Hansard (Wednesday, 18 August 2004) . . Page.. 3824 ..

there. They are all in there because they want to go in there; it is not because that is the spot you have to go to.

When I was on the housing list back in the 1970s—and I waited for three years—I was told, “You have three choices; they are all in Holt and they are all in the same street.” As it turned out, the one I got was a delightful place, but I did not have any choice there. So when I moved in I stuck a sign out in front of my house saying “I am a poor person”, and it did not do my own sense of worth a lot of good.

I would like to say thank you very much to Ms Tucker for actually putting a solution forward, even if we do not agree with it, and I would like to encourage all members to continue to go down that path.

MR WOOD (Minister for Disability, Housing and Community Services, Minister for Urban Services, Minister for Police and Emergency Services, Minister for Arts and Heritage, and Acting Minister for Health) (11.03): Ms Tucker’s bill presents a great idea, and I am sure she must be considerably encouraged by all the favourable comments she is getting here today, none of which go as far as to say this can work. An idea needs to be more than an idea. We considered this. Ms Tucker’s proposal came out of the housing affordability task force report. You can bet your bottom dollar that, as part of that consideration, I, as minister, have explored every issue and every means to be able to do this. The idea is there and we have accepted the concept.

Mr Quinlan mentioned the 5 per cent affordable requirement in City West. Let’s look and see how it works in practice. We do not have many examples on this, but go to Burnie Court. When we auctioned off a site there on the northern edge of where Burnie Court used to be, we put in a requirement for 5 per cent affordable housing. That was in the auction documents—5 per cent. I do not know whether that was a factor, but that did not attract the sort of bid that we expected. Burnie Court did not sell. It may have been a factor. I think the more likely reason is that it was the market conditions at the time—the market was very well supplied with unit developments—and that the developers at that time said, “We don’t know that the market can sustain another development.”

At that time the Metropolitan development just across City Hill was stalled, as was another one down Northbourne Avenue. In those cases it was considered the market was stalled. I hope that is the reason that Burnie Court did not sell and that the fact that we had written in 5 per cent was not an issue that the prospective bidders had in mind.

The point has been raised through all of this that there is a transferral of costs. I can live with that; that does not worry me particularly. But remember this, just to balance that thought: these are responses to the affordability crisis that is a factor here in the ACT as it is across Australia and in other places around the world. In attacking the affordability problem we should not take a measure that will increase the problem by increasing the price of houses. When we put 5 per cent on, we were prepared to do that in very careful measure. But to have a blanket 10 per cent across every development of more than 20 units is going to have one inevitable outcome, that is, the cost of units will rise. This would increase the cost of houses.

So you are introducing a negative aspect to it. That is how carefully this process has to be worked. That is why, with Burnie Court, we very carefully put in 5 per cent as a good

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