Page 4845 - Week 13 - Wednesday, 1 November 2017
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who are forced to decide between paying their mortgage or rent instalment or paying their rates, gas and electricity bills can rest easy.
This government really would not want to think about them, and it is obvious from this motion that neither does Ms Orr. What is invisible in Ms Orr’s motion and just as opaque in the minister’s statement on summit outcomes is any evidence of doing something about the here and now: doing something about the emergency shelters that are stretched to their limit; doing something about a seemingly static waiting list that hovers around the 2,000 mark; doing something about the predatory approach to lease variation charges on multi-dwelling developments to deliberately throttle land supply and to compel those hoping to start a family to have to do so in a cramped apartment dwelling; and doing something about unprecedented levels of rates, taxes, charges, levies and other imposts that must slowly and inevitably tip families across the divide between affordable and unaffordable living in Canberra.
It is great to see Ms Orr giving her government a pat on the back, but it would be even better for Ms Orr to have a serious look at our current circumstance in the ACT and at what this government is doing to potentially increase the risk of unaffordable housing and the risk of homelessness.
In closing, I hope the minister will be forthcoming with genuine initiatives to rein in the current threats and pressures. I also hope that these initiatives are well-articulated, with specific outcomes and measurable program milestones for which the government can willingly be held to account. The government owes the Canberra community this much at the very least.
MS LE COUTEUR (Murrumbidgee) (4.37): I rise to speak to the motion and to move an amendment to this motion which has been circulated. Therefore, I move:
Omit all words after paragraph (1), substitute:
“(2) further notes:
(a) the outcomes of the summit will be key to the development of a new housing strategy, a commitment made in the Parliamentary Agreement;
(b) the new ACT Housing Strategy will follow on from the ACT Government’s Affordable Housing Action Plan which, since 2007, has been directing carefully planned efforts to respond to housing demand and moderate house prices and rent increases; and
(c) that the ACT community, through the Government, invests extensively in housing and homelessness services and maintains both the lowest rough sleeping rate and the highest social housing ratio of any Australian jurisdiction; and
(3) calls on the ACT Government to:
(a) collate the feedback received at the ACT Housing and Homelessness Summit and throughout the extensive community consultation process in developing a new ACT housing strategy, and provide this report to the Assembly and to participants in the process to date;
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