Page 1889 - Week 06 - Thursday, 5 May 2005
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a number of other municipalities have looked at it. They have done their feasibility studies. Why do we not just introduce BASIX? The allocations to sustainable transport are also significant and welcome, although, of course, we would suggest that more should be invested here.
We are looking forward to participating in the planning reform project and hope that it gets to the heart of some of the systemic failures of our current system and addresses issues around consultation, environmental impact of buildings and social sustainability of housing developments and urban developments. But, overall, the budget makes me question the government’s commitment to ecological aspects of sustainability.
There is a great big gaping hole in this budget and that is in relation to the absence of funding allocated to increase affordable housing. Despite repeatedly acknowledging that there is a crisis in affordable housing and expressing a commitment to address this, the government has failed to deliver on a number of key election promises, including additional capital injections for public housing in the order of $10 million per year for three years—though I will with interest follow up Mr Hargreaves’s comments today; funding to retrofit some public housing for energy efficiency in the order of $4 million; and new and expanded programs to assist people to enter and maintain private and public tenancies.
The Treasurer’s statement in his budget speech that housing affordability in the ACT has been improving since the middle of last year appears to refer only to the affordability of buying a home. There is no evidence that the rental market is easing or that there has been any reduction in the number of people seeking urgent placements in public housing. This budget fails to demonstrate a promised commitment to addressing the lack of affordable housing in the ACT. Initiatives included in the last budget were seen as the beginning rather than the end of work needed in this area, but expectations have now been dashed. I welcome the commitment of $1 million in new works funding for energy and water improvements for ACT public housing.
I question the need for a feasibility study for a homelessness drop-in centre. The proposal for such a centre has been around for long enough and I would have thought that community groups could readily provide advice to the government on this initiative without the need for a study. This would allow the centre itself to be established more expediently. While acknowledging the considerable investment in homelessness services in previous budgets, it is important to remember that there continues to be high unmet need for these services in the ACT. As the ACT Council of Social Service has identified in its budget analysis, the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare report on homeless people in SAAP, produced in March 2005, suggested that there were 1,950 requests for service that could not be met in the 2003-04 year. Of these, 1,000 requests were from single women.
On the issue of poverty, I am disappointed that the budget does not include initiatives in relation to emergency relief and an expansion of concessions programs. Emergency relief received a small injection last year but it was nowhere near enough to meet the increase in need experienced by welfare services in the ACT. There has been much talk about concessions and I think that it is widely recognised that there are problems with concession programs based on Commonwealth government pension cards, as this locks people into a poverty cycle and also fails to respond to the needs of other people living
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