Page 1787 - Week 06 - Wednesday, 4 May 2005
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DR FOSKEY (Molonglo) (3.52): I have three amendments to Mr Hargreaves’s amendment.
MR SPEAKER: We can only deal with one of them at a time. You will need to circulate the amendments.
DR FOSKEY: Yes. I have not yet moved the amendments. I am hoping that they are going to be circulated any minute. I would like to respond to Mr Hargreaves’s amendment, and I guess Mr Hargreaves will hardly be surprised that I am disappointed that he responded to my motion—
MR SPEAKER: Pardon me for interrupting you, Dr Foskey, but we do not seem to have a copy of your amendments at the table.
DR FOSKEY: It was handed to the Clerk just after lunch. I have another copy here. Perhaps it was given back to me uncopied.
I feel that Mr Hargreaves’s amendment really just states the procedures the government should be taking anyway, given that it responded to the affordable housing task force report and reports upon that every year or so. What we really need here is something that comes close to an implementation plan. The meat of my motion was about proposing a route by which we might get to that implementation plan.
I proposed that the affordable housing task force be reconvened. Mr Hargreaves amended the motion in order to remove any reference to the affordable housing task force and my amendment, which I hope you will soon see, will take on board Mr Hargreaves’s amendment but add a little more strength and meat to it. We would like to amend Mr Hargreaves’s proposed amendment to the preamble to include a date, so that Mr Hargreaves would be required to report to the Assembly “on 30 June 2005”.
Then we would then like to add two new paragraphs to Mr Hargreaves’s amendment. New paragraph 6 is to the effect that the report include an implementation plan to implement the recommendations of the Affordable Housing Taskforce report Strategies for action. New paragraph 7 would require the minister to consult with community groups and housing industry representatives as part of the process of developing his report.
I have added those because the Greens are serious about having this government do something about affordable housing. I appreciate Mr Hargreaves’s heartfelt commitment to improving the situation. I also acknowledge that the government is taking a bit of a turn in its policy approach to the issue of affordable housing by realising that it is not just about a certain number of people being able to purchase blocks of land in a land ballot and become first home owners. It is really about people who are a long way from ever being able to do that. The issue is rental accommodation in this city.
I acknowledge that all of that is very good but, because the Greens are very keen to see something happen, and happen soon so that the crisis does not become a disaster, we have put a date on which we ask Mr Hargreaves to report. We have also added an implementation plan, because that is what has been lacking all along, so that when
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