Page 3987 - Week 12 - Thursday, 20 October 2005
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .
commitments, no evidence of how the government intends to bring together stakeholders to progress key initiatives, no time frames and no mechanism for review. By contrast, the appendix to this report identifies that many other Australian jurisdictions have developed strategic plans or frameworks to provide a coherent approach to promoting and supporting affordable housing.
The progress report touches on affordable housing initiatives for specific target groups, but largely repeats initiatives already mentioned in previous sections. It fails to recognise housing difficulties experienced by families with people with a disability. Access to supported accommodation for people with a disability has been identified as a national priority area of unmet need and there are difficulties for people who live in privately owned or rented housing who need home modifications and cannot afford them.
There is mention of an ACT Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander housing plan 2004-05, which has five goals, but there is no description of progress or achievements from this plan. There is also mention of a joint initiative with ATSIS, but no details as to how the funding was distributed and whether it was used to fund initiatives listed as ACT government initiatives.
The need for more affordable housing for people with mental health issues also gets scant treatment in the progress report. This has been raised as a priority need in evidence provided to the 2005-06 budget estimates committee. This is a disappointing report that contains out-of-date data and excludes relevant data contradicting some of the government’s assertions. There is little evidence of any real improvement in affordable housing in the ACT since 2002.
As a result of the poor status of housing affordability in the ACT, the ACT Greens have developed their own recommendations. Firstly, the ACT needs an affordable housing plan or strategy to clearly establish targets and time frames for action to be taken across government agencies in partnership with the community and private sectors. We urge the government to develop transparent indicators for measuring affordable housing in the ACT. We call on the government to develop a long-term financing strategy for social housing and substantially increase funding for public and community housing in the 2005-06 budget.
Fourthly, we question the assertion that there is an adequate supply of public housing in the ACT and we call on the ACT government to increase supply through additional investment. Fifthly, the ACT Greens support more investment in energy and water efficiency in public and community housing. Sixthly, we call on the government to address delays in the release of land for community housing initiatives and ensure that in future there is a coordinated process for allocating both land and funding for such projects.
Seventhly, the Greens contend that increasing the supply of affordable housing will both reduce the incidence of housing crisis and provide more exit options from SAAP, thus reducing homelessness. We urge the government to take action to facilitate progress on shared equity schemes to support home ownership amongst low to moderate income earners. We believe that all investment in affordable housing strategies should be subject to a cost-benefit analysis.
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .