Page 227 - Week 02 - Tuesday, 6 March 2007
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Since then we have also learnt that the Chief Minister’s task force is looking closely at shared equity schemes. That is encouraging. It is one of the strategies that the Greens, the community sector and the government’s own 2002 task force called for the government to look closely at. However, the equity needs to be shared with government or the not-for-profit sector. Overseas experience has shown that such schemes can be poverty traps if not set up with due care.
I note that Chief Minister Jon Stanhope is also on the record as ruling out affordable housing in the 12,000 residences of the NCA’s proposed Griffin Legacy project. Large scale developments such as the Griffin Legacy project come along only every now and again. The problem is that, unless permanently affordable housing is built into all major developments, we will miss the chance to change the balance of housing in our community and divisions between the poor and the comfortable will grow wider. It is a failure of nerve to dodge the issue here, as it was on the Kingston Foreshore project.
Finally, I note that the Victorian minister for housing is looking at the investment of some of the Victorian government’s superannuation funds into public and affordable housing. I have asked the Chief Minister to include this option in his review of our super investments. In addition to looking at how we plan and build our cities to meet the needs of all our citizens, we should look at how we fund that building too.
MR SESELJA (Molonglo) (4.48): Home ownership is one of the biggest factors in the relative wealth of Australians. It remains the great Australian dream because it gives security and stability to families and individuals and has been a key part of the growth in people’s wealth over the past generation.
We know, of course, that when house prices go up quickly, those of us in the community who own our own home and those who have investment properties do very well. It is a tax free or low tax form of capital gain. On the one hand we have people who do very well. Many in the community will do very well out of the housing boom and the growth in land and house prices. But, of course, when prices go up at an extraordinary rate, as we have seen in the past few years, and stay there and then go up again quickly, which is what we are seeing at the moment in Canberra, those who suffer most are those trying to break into the market.
This is the inherent dilemma in the issue of housing affordability. It is an area that is close to my heart. I have friends and family who are trying to break into the market at the moment and may have overcommitted themselves or taken on very large mortgages in recent years simply to break into the market. Then, of course, there are other friends and family who have done very, very well out of the housing boom and are feeling very comfortable because of it.
That is the inherent dilemma for government, and I understand it. It is in that context that we need to approach this debate: that there is not a quick fix to this issue. There are ways of addressing it, but they will need to be developed over time. I think one of the unfortunate things in this area in the ACT has been that this government unfortunately has been slow to come to the table. It will take years to catch up, to try and find that balance between, obviously, good, solid growth for people who invest in
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