Page 4090 - Week 13 - Thursday, 6 December 2007
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a number of experts from around Australia and from around the world to discuss the problem and the solutions. It might help the Chief Minister if he looked at—and I am happy to provide him with—copies of the PowerPoint presentations.
When you talk to somebody like Rod Fehring, the CEO of Lend Lease ventures, about housing affordability and the future of our cities, he simply says that the conclusion is that we need supply-side initiatives. That is what Lend Lease sees as the issue. When you go to a group like the AV Jennings group, they say the fundamental need change is reforming of the planning systems to speed up rezoning and DA. They lay the blame fairly and squarely mostly on state and local government-induced problems. If you do not want to believe that side of the argument, go to the other side of the argument where John Stewart, who is the Director of Economic Affairs for the Home Builders Federation of the UK, basically says, referring to the dimensions of the undersupply, its total numbers are inadequate and supply is unresponsive to demand.
If you are not happy with those three experts, then of course we have got a local expert who tells us what the real problem is, and that is the Deputy Chief Minister. On 30 November, Ms Gallagher said land shortages are behind the bottlenecks in the system. That is the problem: land shortages are behind the bottlenecks in the system.
I am not normally into conspiracy theories but I can see a good one emerging here because we have those immortal words of the then Treasurer Mr Quinlan who infamously said to business on 17 March 2005, “I will squeeze you until you bleed, not until you die.” There is the policy direction: squeeze until you bleed but not until you die. What did we see in regard to land release happening at that time? This is in March 2005. You have to look. Did they squeeze? The answer is yes, they did. In the 2004-05 financial year, single-block sales in the ACT were 1,488. In March 2005 Mr Quinlan made his statement that he was going to squeeze this market until it bleeds. What happens in 2005-06? It drops from 1,488 blocks in 2004-05 to only 579 blocks sold. It is almost 1,000 fewer. The government deliberately took 1,000 blocks out of the market. In 2006-07, having realised their mistake in 2005-06, they bumped it back up to 1,587 blocks for sale.
If you look at the last six years, since we left office, in 2001-02 it is 1,200 blocks; in 2002-03, 1,000 blocks approximately; in 2003-04, 1,200 blocks, call it; in 2004-05, 1,500 blocks; in 2005-06, 600 blocks were put up for sale; and in 2006-07, almost 1,600 blocks. What is the source of that? It was signed off by the Chief Minister himself in answer to a question in relation to the budget.
The government took those decisions at a time when there was a crisis approaching. And we know that the crisis was approaching. I hear the Chief Minister bleat, as he does so often, “Nobody told me. Why did John Howard not get on the phone and tell me there were going to be a couple of thousand more public servants?” Jon, get your act into gear.
Because of the failing relationship that the Chief Minister has with most of his colleagues at the federal level, he also ignored the reports that litter the offices in this place. The previous Liberal government had a task force on poverty. It saw housing as an issue back in 2001. This government had a task force that reported in December
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