Page 5473 - Week 15 - Tuesday, 8 December 2009
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delivery. Social housing projects are using the expanded panel of builders and architects developed by Housing ACT and the Procurement Board. All projects funded under building the education revolution are being managed by experienced construction managers from industry. Procurement Solutions staff members have been embedded in the Department of Education and Training, as has previously been done for goods and services procurement. We are also looking at the potential for wider adoption of the embedding model.
I have commented before on the genuinely progressive stance that the commonwealth government has taken in using this massive stimulus to drive a lasting change in the area of social housing. It is hard to imagine any but a Labor government seizing the opportunity to massively boost the number of social housing dwellings for those in our communities most at risk of homelessness and most affected by the nationwide challenge of affordability. The commonwealth and ACT governments are determined to tackle properly and comprehensively homelessness and to create, through careful and creative developments, mixed communities where true social inclusion can flourish.
In August this year, the ACT government released the ACT affordable housing action plan phase 2, setting out new actions to increase the supply and variety of affordable and appropriate housing for older Canberrans at every level, but particularly those in the target groups living on modest or low incomes. The plan responds to the need to boost the number of public housing properties that are appropriate for older public housing tenants, and this is being actively progressed through the nation building and jobs plan initiative, with 132 dwellings approved on eight sites across Canberra.
The nation building work is delivering a mixture of larger, multi-unit dwellings and detached dwellings, while also preserving the benefits of the disaggregated housing stock which is a proud feature of social housing here in the ACT. The result is a housing portfolio that works better for more tenants and a portfolio that also delivers on the government’s urban consolidation objectives, including the objective of having greater numbers of dwellings close to public transport and shops.
One other crucial focus of the commonwealth has been on education infrastructure. This leverages the ACT government’s own major investment in public education since 2006. As part of the ACT government’s own reforms, a three-yearly cycle of infrastructure review was completed. This meant we were already well placed to maximise the commonwealth’s stimulus investment.
Rather than having to use design templates or sourcing prefabricated demountables, the ACT has used standard design briefs to scope each project. In addition, where appropriate, limited works from the Department of Education and Training’s list of required future refurbishments and projects have been brought forward and incorporated into the construction activity already underway as part of the BER investment.
One aspect of the stimulus package worth special mention is the flow-on benefit for apprentices and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians. We can all recall, in the darkest days of the last government, when commonwealth money for capital works was sometimes made conditional on the offer of individual agreements under
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