Page 4844 - Week 13 - Wednesday, 1 November 2017
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obligations of an elected government. In saying that, can I say that the minister’s housing and homelessness summit was a major exercise, and she is to be commended for such an inclusionary effort. It is a combative theatrical space down here and I have more faith in the minister than she thinks I do. I also have faith in the wonderful people in that directorate; there are some wonderful, innovative, forward-thinking, switched-on, smart people.
This is a very, very tough problem. It must be said that while the summit was proceeding almost 2,000 people were on the social housing waiting list. I know I am not telling you anything you do not know, but it is my job to stand up and say that this winter just gone we saw an unprecedented pressure on overnight and emergency shelters, particularly around inner Canberra. We have a mini crisis going on here, and it is not our doing. I know there are some outside influences affecting other parts of the country as well, but you cannot get away from the fact that ACT Labor has been in power either on its own or with others assisting it for a long time.
Evidence of the need for action is not only stark but timely and pressing. The summit pulled together the best expertise and advice the territory could muster, including policy experts, practitioners who have had to deal with those experiencing homelessness and some who are experiencing homelessness or are precariously balanced on the verge of falling into it. No doubt the expectations from such an extensive process and expert inputs would be extremely high.
Some of the minister’s responses to the summit—and I say “some” because I know there are more to come—were announced on the same day as the summit itself. We got a housing innovation fund with $1 million allocated to it to progress government commitments to pilot programs obligated by the Greens-Labor parliamentary agreement. We would be led to believe that this massive consultation exercise has produced the unanimous endorsement of measures the government was already obligated to do.
The minister’s commitment to an increased land supply target is a useful and positive measure, potentially one of the most significant means for remedying homelessness and affordable housing pressures. The provision of an additional 530 sites is welcomed. I suspect that a previous Chief Minister might also welcome this contribution, but it does not go far enough. The aforementioned former Chief Minister has stated that the government is manipulating the ACT land supply in favour of windfall profits to the government but at the detriment of affordable housing and public housing available for the homeless. This is not coming from the MBA; it is not coming from someone out on the right; it is coming from the most decorated Labor leader this territory has seen.
As we can see from the minister’s statement, the summit was an exercise less about genuine altruism and innovation to resolve a major social problem and, as she said, more about fulfilling the Labor-Greens parliamentary agreement commitment to hold a summit on housing and homelessness in 2017. We can all now rest easy in the knowledge that the Greens-Labor Party agreement has been fulfilled. I am sure that those sleeping rough, those waiting in the queue for social housing or those families
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