Page 217 - Week 02 - Tuesday, 6 March 2007
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MRS BURKE (Molonglo) (4.12): Housing affordability is decreasing for significant sections of the ACT community. If nothing is done to address this issue, the number of future households in housing stress will have increased by nearly 50 per cent by the time the population reaches 400,000. One may be forgiven for thinking these are reasonable comments. In fact, those comments come from the executive summary on Affordable housing in the Australian Capital Territory: strategies for action, a report of the ministerial taskforce on affordable housing. When? December 2002.
The taskforce brought together then a cross-section of business, community and government representatives to develop strategies to address housing stress in our community. The taskforce has considered many options from other jurisdictions, both nationally and overseas, that could either encourage private investment or achieve effective use of our existing resources and develop strategies appropriate to the ACT situation.
I find it incomprehensible, therefore, that we now, in 2007—the Chief Minister having established in August 2006 an affordable housing taskforce—are once more discussing this particular issue. No-one would deny that Canberra has become one of the most expensive cities in which to find affordable accommodation that matches the range of housing needs. Although they enjoy a relatively affluent lifestyle in the nation’s capital, there are still a significant number of Canberrans who cannot access affordable, appropriate, secure or adaptable forms of accommodation.
Interlaced in the current ACT budget 2006-07 were statements that pointed to the Stanhope government conceding that it is policies, particularly in housing, have been neglecting the needs of people who access public housing particularly, especially for the duration of their perceived need. Governments, I believe, are tasked primarily with providing essential services. It is time for real leadership and a true duty of care in tackling the problem of the lack of affordable housing in the ACT. Five years, in anybody’s book, with 46 recommendations coming out of that 2002 report, is more than enough for any government to have acted on by now. So it is high time for the Stanhope government to set its priorities to cater for all Canberrans.
In the first instance, the Minister for Housing, John Hargreaves MLA, could have made more significant inroads by tackling the inequities in the allocation of public housing properties to Canberra’s most needy. Yet he has continued to focus far too much on the private rental market and a continued upward trend in rental rates. Quite clearly, significant increases in rates and land taxes have forced landlords, many of whom are perhaps now rethinking the long-term value of investing in property, to pass costs on to tenants.
The Stanhope government has proclaimed to have spent tens of millions of dollars to improve housing assistance programs and inject more funds into capital works since entering government in 2001. Varying forms of housing stress, be it acute homelessness or the impact of rents on the household budget, continue to be ignored or dismissed. These are the real issues the ACT Liberal opposition has identified over the past three or four years and the Stanhope government has yet to address.
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