Page 2220 - Week 06 - Thursday, 7 June 2018
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address climate change impacts and maintain our feel as the bush capital. After many years of pestering, the Greens are extremely pleased to see a four-year program to fund invasive plant and animal management, as well as interim funding to support catchment groups while the federal government gets its act together.
The economy may be performing strongly, but that does not mean that the benefits are being shared equally. The Greens believe that the government needs to do more to close the growing inequity, including addressing housing affordability. Canberra is experiencing an ongoing housing affordability challenge and people moving to the ACT need housing that is affordable and available. Housing-related measures in this year’s budget provide cause for both optimism and a place in need of further work.
The government’s most welcome announcements are in regard to funding for additional front-line homelessness services and extending the operating hours of OneLink, recognised in the parliamentary agreement. Insufficient funding for these organisations was a key gap in the system that was identified in the lead-up to the last election and has been an ongoing concern.
We are especially pleased to see the strengthening of specialist homelessness and housing support services, including innovation funding to increase the supply of affordable rental housing for people escaping domestic violence, further funding for accommodation for older Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, services for older women at risk of homelessness, and specialist disability accommodation.
Thanks to the Greens we have now published targets for the number of public, community and affordable housing dwellings that will be built in greenfield and urban renewal sites. While welcome in terms of transparency, the targets for 2017-18 are disappointing. The budget papers tell us there will be a slight increase in this year’s housing targets—up to 552 public, community and affordable dwellings. It is also pleasing to see that these targets will include housing in renewal areas, not just greenfields.
However, the amount of social housing has been going backwards as a proportion of our overall housing stock for two decades. Yesterday we debated a motion noting 4,000 new homes being added to our city annually. To simply maintain the current proportion of social housing, about 284 of these would need to be set aside for people on low incomes or with particular housing requirements. But we are not coming close to this. This budget simply does not adequately address the shortage of affordable housing.
It is clear that the incidence of homelessness is increasing in our city, a predictable problem that goes hand in hand with our population increase. The Greens know the increased financial and social impacts of not providing accommodation for rough sleepers, many of whom have high and complex needs.
We are very supportive of the Common Ground model. The first Common Ground was in the parliamentary agreement last Assembly. This budget funds design for work for Common Ground in Dickson, but at the rate this city is growing we are likely to require both the new Common Ground in Dickon and an expansion of the one in
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