Page 1526 - Week 05 - Wednesday, 10 May 2017
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Mrs Dunne: Nobody reads those.
MS LAWDER: I am not sure who does read those newspaper notices in this day and age. I know, from my previous time working in the housing sector, about supportive housing, social housing, public housing, community housing, however you want to talk about it. The government have some definitions of what that means as well. The government say in their particular websites et cetera, “What is social housing?” I quote from an ACT government website. The ACT government definition is:
Social housing incorporates Public Housing, Community Housing and Affordable Housing, offering low cost housing for people on low and moderate incomes, and/or for groups whose housing needs are not adequately met in other forms of housing.
Social housing is what we think of as an umbrella term. It encompasses public, community and affordable housing. Supportive housing is a very small subset of that under community housing. The way that this technical amendment has put through the wording to include social housing under the definition of supportive housing tries to imply that supportive housing is the umbrella term under which social housing may be found, which is absolutely incorrect and is not what is found in a range of ACT government and federal government legislation, acts, agreements and other documentation. It was quite an underhanded way, I believe, to put through this particular change and it certainly does not meet with the intention of a technical amendment, because it does change the intent of the Territory Plan.
Today my motion acknowledges that it is important that these issues and concerns about the use of community facility zoned land are considered and resolved before any more CFZ land is used for public housing and we are asking in this motion today for the government to cease development or construction of any new social or public housing on CFZ land except specifically for aged or disability housing, which was originally allowed following the 2005 amendment. This is important because we need to clarify for the benefit of our entire community that their community zones are intended for community facilities.
We are also calling on the government to list any instances where public or social housing has been built on CFZ land already, except specifically for aged or disability housing, to give the community that information so that they can truly understand the extent to which these issues already exist. We are asking the government to outline clearly whether the 2015 technical amendment has significantly changed the Territory Plan.
There are legitimate concerns from the public that the amendment was not a minor amendment, and the government should explain how the amendment changes the Territory Plan. It would seem that Ms Le Couteur and the Greens together agree, because this morning they put through their own bill to clarify the use of those technical amendments. I am sure Ms Le Couteur and hopefully the Greens as a whole will have no problem in supporting that particular clause, if not the motion as a whole.
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