Page 3362 - Week 09 - Tuesday, 21 August 2018
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The responses to recommendations 128 and 129 are less encouraging. In these responses the government only agrees in principle to provide more ambitious targets to the City Renewal Authority and the Suburban Land Agency for affordable, community and public housing targets. It still does not commit to explaining how the sites allocated to community housing providers will be allocated to specific community housing providers rather than the sector as a whole. That is quite concerning. The government’s response notes:
The targets also need to consider the development capacity of the Community Housing Sector and Housing ACT …
But this is a spurious argument. The budget figures state that Housing ACT will be investing $37 million over 2018-19 to purchase, construct and refurbish properties. Even assuming that there is additional funding from the sale of properties that can be used to top this up, the trend is not encouraging. In the last year the public housing capital delivery program purchased or built 52 new public housing dwellings. This is great, but in that year Housing ACT also sold 60 properties; that is, more than they purchased—a net loss.
The capacity of Housing ACT to develop housing in new land release sites is clearly limited—very limited. This limitation, however, is clearly a function of how much this government is willing to spend in this portfolio area. Likewise for community housing: the targets for new dwelling sites have actually decreased from a very low 34 last year to a miserable 20 dwelling sites for 2018-19. Why? When we asked about this, we were told it was about the capacity of the community housing sector.
As with many other community sectors, the community housing sector is, to quite an extent, a creature of public policy. If organisations are funded or given opportunities to grow supply, they will; they clearly will. These targets, and the government’s response to another recommendation, noting that it only agrees in principle to maintaining a minimum proportion of social housing stock—which reflects a successful Greens motion in April, passed with the generous support of the Liberal Party—are disappointing, to say the least. Again, in response to this recommendation, the government cites the development capacity of community and public housing providers. That is not the point. The issue really is the requirement of the community for housing; then the government needs to look at how it provides it, not the other way around.
The government’s housing targets and in principle support for the Assembly’s motion regarding maintaining the proportion of social housing reflect more than just a lack of willingness to properly fund this vital social infrastructure. They reflect a lack of creative thinking.
Minister Berry has noted on multiple occasions that she is proud that Housing ACT has not transferred large numbers of its properties to the community housing sector, as every other jurisdiction has done. This is despite the possibilities that such transfer could bring to leverage community housing tenants’ access to commonwealth rent assistance, which increases providers’ rental income, as well as the capacity of community housing providers to raise debt to increase supply.
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