Page 440 - Week 02 - Tuesday, 4 March 2008
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .
The Chief Minister can get up and say that Canberra is affordable but he should go to the suburbs, he should go to where young families are struggling with their rents of $350, $400 and $450 a week, trying to save for a home, trying to save for a block of land. They are not looking for an extravagant home; I do not subscribe to the idea that young families who are struggling now are looking for something extravagant. They are struggling with high rents and now, when they want to buy a home, a simple home, a three-bedroom home in the suburbs on a basic block of land, many of them are being squeezed out of the ability to buy even that. So it is not about lavish expectations.
This government, which controls land supply in the territory, which develops land in the territory and which has been, until recently, the monopoly developer of that land, needs to take responsibility. It is time that this government actually said, “Yes, we got it wrong. Stifling competition was a bad idea, squeezing land release was a bad idea, and those bad ideas and that poor planning have led to young Canberrans, thousands of young Canberrans, either being forced out of the market, forced out of Canberra or forced into mortgage stress as interest rates now rise and they have taken on significant mortgages just to squeeze their way into the market.” That is what this government should be saying and that is the government’s legacy when it comes to planning and when it comes to catering to our young people and their aspiration, their legitimate aspiration, to buy a home.
The planning minister when the LDA was created said that one of the key outcomes of this agency would be to provide affordable housing for the community. On any measure, this has been an absolutely dismal failure. It was a bad idea from the start. It is still a bad idea and this government, despite some changes, still persists with this bad idea and still continues to impose this burden. And make no mistake: it is the young families of Canberra who are buying into this market who are propping up this government’s budget; it is the young families who are having to pay ridiculous amounts for their block of land, who are having to pay large amounts of stamp duty and other charges when they purchase their home and when they move to a larger home as their families grow. Significant amounts of the government’s revenue are coming from them and it is on the back of this that the government is now able to produce significant surpluses.
We saw the government’s lack of plan when it came to the issue of the dam. We heard Mr Gentleman talking about how it has now planned for a dam. We talked about housing affordability and the significant failings at a systemic level by this government in relation to housing affordability. But, if there is another area where the government have really let the people of the ACT down with their future planning, it has been with the dam. The government’s approach until recently has been to hope for the best. The plan in relation to water management has been to pray for rain. And we have seen that that is not the way. It has been raining a bit, but we know that, even with dam levels now up to 50 per cent, if we were to have another dry spell we could very easily, even under restrictions, be down to 30 per cent before too long. So there is no doubt that, as the city grows, as the region grows, we do need to have a plan to secure our water supply. Why has it taken this government so long to see that basic fact?
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .