Page 783 - Week 02 - Thursday, 12 February 2009
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Madam Assistant Speaker, one area in which the government has made a dramatic investment in the community sector is also in the area of social housing. As the Assembly knows, the ACT government’s response to affordability has been the most comprehensive and far-reaching in the nation. Our housing affordability action plan has initiatives for up-sizers and down-sizers, for first home buyers and older Canberrans seeking supported accommodation. It has initiatives to boost the stock of rental properties and create innovative pathways to home ownership. In the area of social housing, the government has injected a massive $40 million in equity to CHC affordable housing in addition to creating a $50 million rolling line of credit that will see CHC deliver 1,000 new community housing properties over the next 10 years.
Madam Assistant Speaker, the ACT government is committed to a vision of our community that involves a true social compact. We acknowledge the critical role the community sector has in making that compact a reality and delivering vital services to the community and we will continue to partner with the community sector to mitigate the impact of the global financial crisis on Canberrans, especially on those most vulnerable to falling through the safety net.
I might just conclude, Madam Assistant Speaker, with the observation that in relation to some of the further or expected impacts of the global financial crisis on our community, we have spent some time this week debating issues around the $42 billion stimulus package. In the context of the support that we know we as governments and communities will have to provide to those most particularly impacted by the financial crisis that is gripping the world, we need to ensure that we have in place programs that will support those people that are already unemployed and also that additional doubling of the number of unemployed that we expect to see here in the territory and across Australia.
I think that in the context of the global financial crisis, we should recognise the fact that it has not yet bitten in Australia at a community level to the extent that it has in some other places, but which we know that it will. Therefore, we need to be able to translate our thinking, our argument and perhaps our rhetoric into an acknowledgement of the cold, hard statistic or analysis. Unemployment will double here for us from 2.6 per cent to perhaps 5.4 per cent. We are talking about at least another 2,000 people that will become unemployed within the Australian Capital Territory over the next 12 months.
We talk about these statistics—2.6 per cent to 5.4 per cent—as numbers. But that represents 2,000 individuals, 2,000 wage earners, 2,000 families potentially without a wager earner within the house. This is over and above that number of Canberrans that currently live in households where there is no wage earner. These are not just statistics; these are not just numbers. We are talking about people. We are talking about families. We are talking about children living in a family or a home without a wage earner. In the context of all of our discussion around the urgency and the need for a stimulus package which the federal government has proposed, we need to understand that we are talking about people and we are talking about our capacity as communities to support those people that will be most significantly affected by the economic crisis and its implications for us.
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