Page 4852 - Week 13 - Wednesday, 1 November 2017
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As was the case with the summit, the government intends that this work be undertaken in consultation with community representatives and in continued collaboration with key stakeholders. That is why I have asked the members of my affordable housing advisory group to continue in their role to help guide and support this process.
I made announcements at the summit about the $1 million innovation fund. Part of that innovation fund will go towards the ACT government’s election commitments and the commitments made in the ACT parliamentary agreement. The other part of the innovation fund will go towards some of the innovation that will come out of the summit. This could include new partnerships among the community housing, community services, real estate and design and construction sectors.
We are committed to expanding and improving the way that the release of land for affordable public and community housing occurs. For the remainder of 2017-18 we will be working with the SLA and the CRA to ensure that in the future the affordable housing policy yields the best outcomes for the people in our community. We will closely monitor the effect of the new annual community land release targets, which should provide greater certainty for developers and the wider community around the location of future affordable and social housing across the city. This work is important to ensure that Canberra continues to be a socially inclusive and livable city in which Canberrans can participate to realise their full potential.
There is much work underway seeking to improve housing affordability and reduce homelessness in the ACT. The recent housing and homelessness summit was an important step in the journey to achieve this endeavour. I know that the rest of the community that was involved in the conversations leading up to the summit will be keen to be involved in the future conversations to ensure housing availability and housing affordability in the ACT. I want to thank everybody who contributed, including members from this place who attended the summit and who will continue to be involved in the development of a strategy moving forward.
Of course, there are levers that we control in the ACT. There are levers that we do not control in respect of which I have consistently called for change. In the federal parliament it is changes to negative gearing and capital gains tax. I will continue to call for those changes. I take every chance at every housing ministers meeting to ensure that the federal government are reminded that that is something they control. The federal government could be bold and courageous and make a significant change to the levers they control. That would make a considerable difference to people not only in the ACT community but also across Australia.
I look forward to continuing all the work that we can do in the ACT, with the levers that we control, to address homelessness. I look forward to updating the Assembly and the broader community on the progress of this work. I commend this motion to the Assembly. I thank Ms Orr again for bringing it forward for this conversation.
MS ORR (Yerrabi) (5.01): I thank my colleagues Ms Berry and Ms Le Couteur for their constructive comments in this debate. I am not sure what to say about Mr Parton’s comments. On the one hand he calls us narcissistic, then on the other he
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