Page 517 - Week 02 - Wednesday, 18 February 2015
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The national partnership agreements are a classic example of this. Towards the end of each financial year there is tremendous uncertainty in the sector as to whether they will be renewed. This started under the Gillard government, when it was extended for 12 months, and the federal coalition government has taken a similar approach. We have been in a situation for two or three financial years where, until the last weeks or month before the cut-off point, there has been uncertainty about the future of the program.
This is no way to plan for the provision of services in such an important sector. It would be fair to say that the last time I went to a national housing ministers meeting, all housing ministers from all jurisdictions, be they Labor, Liberal or Green ministers, were unanimous in the view that the states could not be in a situation where the commonwealth continued to take these 12-month cycles. It is no way to do policy and it is no way to address such an important sector. I hope we can get to a place where a federal government, of whatever persuasion, actually commits to having a long-term strategy and a long-term commitment to these programs so that the states and the NGOs can get on with planning with some certainty.
That said, I would like to move on to the specific issues of housing and homelessness in the ACT. With the amendment that Ms Berry has brought forward, which I will be supporting today, the Assembly is set to get an excellent update and detailed information on a range of matters that Ms Lawder touched on in her motion. It will be an opportunity to look at the size and scope of the challenge facing the ACT, having regard to the impressive amount of effort that is going into service provision. I certainly look forward to then seeing where the Liberal Party land on new policy in this space—whether they are able to present any alternative views and policies on this complex matter or whether it is simply a matter of saying that the government is not doing enough.
As we heard earlier today, the government is currently undertaking a major urban renewal program, and the Public Housing Renewal Taskforce plays a big part in that overall program. I am happy to say that, through a combination of the parliamentary agreement and the work to date of my cabinet colleagues in this term of the Assembly, the ACT government is delivering on the goals of providing safe, secure, appropriate and affordable housing, and that they are goals that are shared by both me on behalf of the Greens and the Labor Party. They are challenging goals to achieve. There is pressure in this sector.
I noticed that Ms Lawder in her earlier comments talked about housing affordability and housing prices in the ACT. She made reference to the fact that ACT house prices went up 1.7 per cent last year. That, of course, is quite a small number compared to Sydney particularly—I think they went up by a double-digit figure—and other parts of Australia. I have been noticing lately that there are at least two or three reports a week on house price movements in the paper, and they all show different outcomes. There must be a number of indices out there measuring these things, and it is a funny space to operate in.
In the last 12 to 18 months in the ACT, after a period of probably above average growth we have seen below average growth both in house prices and in rental prices.
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