Page 2740 - Week 08 - Thursday, 24 August 2006
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house. The Greens’ approach to affordable housing will be substandard thirties housing with inappropriate heating, simply because we cannot build anything else.
If Dr Foskey and her predecessors ever got in charge of the planning system in this town, or in any other place, woe betide the rest of us. We would never be able to build a decent house that would provide for those people in need of housing and for everybody who wants to buy a house. I think it is highly ironic that, after years and years of work, we have Dr Foskey coming in here tonight bemoaning the fact that the planning reforms put forward by this government follow the policies of the development forum.
Initiatives have been put forward in the development forum over five, six or seven years—seven years of work. But suddenly the Greens come in here and say, “No, it is not good enough. No, we need to have more appeal rights. We need to do whatever we can to get in the way of development.” Dr Foskey talks about many other things. We have to have recycling for this and water catchments for this. All these things put together make it much more expensive to build a house. I am very critical of many of the so-called water efficiency initiatives. Mr Speaker, I would like to use my second 10 minutes.
MR SPEAKER: Mrs Dunne’s time has expired. She wishes to use her next 10 minutes.
Standing order 76—suspension
Motion by (Mr Corbell) agreed to, with the concurrence of an absolute majority:
That standing order 76 be suspended for the remainder of this sitting.
MRS DUNNE: Turning now to the initiatives put forward by Mr Corbell’s department in relation to water saving, I am particularly concerned about them because of the cost. Many of the elements in the think water, act water”proposal, particularly the more recent ones put forward by the planning authority, cause considerable concern and fail to take into account the initiatives that have been in place in this territory for a very long time. The ACT is a spectacular reuser of recycled water. In fact, 50 per cent of the water we extract for use in the territory is recycled. That is called the lower Molonglo water quality control scheme.
With the approach by this government, which is to some extent backed up by the Greens, we have an imposition on individual householders. We have a whole range of tiny, itty-bitty water saving initiatives: “Recycle here. You must do this; you must do that.” It adds $5,000, $10,000 or $15,000 to the cost of a home. It is a particular impost on home buyers. What we are doing, and what we will be doing, by this is shifting the cost from the community at large to individuals in particular, but often those individuals cannot bear those costs. As a result of that, we will be driving up the cost of housing.
Mr Corbell: Are you going to remove those measures? There is silence on that issue.
MRS DUNNE: It is your policy we are talking about.
MR SMYTH (Brindabella) (10.56): There are a number of firsts in this budget estimates process and none of them shine on the honour of the minister. Indeed, for the first time
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