Page 100 - Week 01 - Tuesday, 9 December 2008
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If Canberra is truly to become the solar capital, the work must start now. It will and it has. Within weeks we will have gone to the market requesting proposals for a solar power station capable of powering many thousands of homes. Soon our nation-leading feed-in tariff will be rewarding Canberrans who generate their own green power. Across every department and across almost every area of government, the government will be setting an example and helping Canberrans make their own contribution to tackling climate change.
At times such as this, when there is legitimate anxiety about the future, it is more important than ever for government to engage and inform the community. Late in the last term the government embarked on a review of the ways in which it involves and consults the community. That work now continues in earnest. We want to know how we can reach people in an age when the traditional mass media seem to be reaching smaller and narrower audiences.
We want to know how we can give more useful feedback to those Canberrans who contribute to our vast array of public consultations. We want to have detailed community consultations on issues that go to the substance of who we are as a city and a community. That way, when we talk about complex issues, workable public transport systems, the provisional cost of car parking, the sustainability of neighbourhood schools and local shops, the protection of our biodiversity, the optimal size of our population, we will all know the consequences of action or inaction of taking one decision rather than another.
One such complex issue that we began to tackle in earnest last term in collaboration with industry and the community sector was housing affordability. The result of our detailed consultation and analysis was an action plan consisting of more than 60 separate initiatives going to all aspects of affordability, not just for homebuyers but for renters and those in supported accommodation.
In the lead-up to the election, I announced the government would redouble its efforts on affordability, this time looking for innovative and workable ways to deliver affordable and appropriate housing to older Canberrans, as well as strategies for reducing the incidence of homelessness in our community. There is more we can do as a government, as a caring community, as a construction industry, to ensure that this most basic of human needs is met and that the housing we create to meet that need is truly deserving of the label “home”.
Notwithstanding the economic uncertainty, the construction industry is telling me that the government’s land release targets for residential, commercial and industrial land should not be changed at this time. Of course we will monitor sales data closely over the coming months and respond accordingly. Thanks to the work we have done over recent times we are better placed than ever before to quickly respond to changes in demand, up or down—a capacity that helps stabilise prices.
In a few months, it will be 20 years since we embarked upon self-government in the territory. We are a stable, mature and confident community that is learning how to make the most of its hybrid model of government which collapses state and useful functions into one tier.
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