Page 106 - Week 01 - Tuesday, 14 February 2012
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video
people who are looking to buy a home. They have abandoned older Canberrans who do not own their own home and who are struggling in a very difficult and tight rental market. All of those people are those second-class citizens that Labor have created, forgotten about and, frankly, do not care about. How do we know Labor do not care about them? It is because all of their policies suggest that they do not. Their policies keep these people from getting into the housing market. They keep Canberrans paying higher rents than they otherwise would have to.
We in the Canberra Liberals believe that this is not the way it should be. We actually believe that if you are sensible in the way you manage these things, if you plan properly, you can improve the situation.
This mess, this two-class Canberra, that Labor have created in the housing market will take some time to fix. But it is not going to be fixed by Andrew Barr saying, “Yes, we will go out and flood the market.” In fact, Mr Barr has shown no evidence that he can even get a reasonable amount of land onto the market but he is now saying, “What we will do in response to that shortage is to flood the market.” But what you should do is sensibly, over time, manage land release, manage infrastructure, review taxation, control spending, and adjust your planning system where necessary to ensure that there is housing choice and that housing becomes more affordable over time, particularly in the outer suburbs.
This is what we have seen in other cities such as Melbourne. Average land values across Melbourne are not that different from average land values across Canberra, so people who have bought over time have seen capital gains and that is a good thing. But in the outer suburbs of Melbourne families have been able to afford a three-bedroom home. The comparison with Canberra is stark. Canberrans are paying significantly more for properties in the outer suburbs.
A great failing of ACT Labor is this two-class territory that they have admitted that they have now created. We have seen—
Ms Burch: So they have tabled their policy, have they?
MR SESELJA: We have tabled policies. Here again is Ms Burch—
Mr Barr: What are they, Zed? What are they?
MADAM DEPUTY SPEAKER: Mr Barr!
MR SESELJA: Obviously he was not listening. We have talked about our policies for reforming infrastructure. We are going to reform infrastructure so we do not see these kinds of bottlenecks. Mr Barr had the hide in the last couple of days to come out and say, “It’s not our fault.” Mr Barr says it is not Labor’s fault; that it is federal Labor’s fault.
If there is one thing that an ACT government has a significant degree of control over, it is land. Everyone knows that, and to pretend otherwise is offensive. It offends the intelligence of Canberrans when Andrew Barr says to them: “We have been here for
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video