Page 4433 - Week 12 - Tuesday, 30 October 2018
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What discount, if any, will be applied to land for community housing—100 per cent or cost price? I look forward to hearing more about the details in the coming days and weeks.
It is really interesting and positive to reflect on the amount of goodwill and excitement, not to mention some really fabulous ideas such as land rent, that accompanied the 2007 affordable housing action plan. Unfortunately, despite the good work that arose from that plan—and external factors were a major reason for the outcomes—the situation is that the ACT’s housing crisis is appreciably worse than it was in 2007. The actual amount of social housing is about the same but, instead of being nearly nine per cent of the Canberra market, it is now only seven per cent. This highlights the importance of the ACT Greens motion passed in April this year to maintain a minimum proportion of social housing dwellings.
As I noted before, this housing strategy has the potential to make a significant impact on our affordable housing crisis, provided it is properly funded and implemented. I am very pleased that it has been announced, and I look forward to hearing much more detail about the strategy in the coming days and months.
MR RAMSAY (Ginninderra—Attorney-General, Minister for the Arts and Cultural Events, Minister for Building Quality Improvement, Minister for Business and Regulatory Services and Minister for Seniors and Veterans) (10.36): The ACT housing strategy presents a vision and a road map that works right across all of our ministerial portfolios in government. I would like to start by echoing the public sentiment of our Chief Minister, who has been clearly describing safe and secure housing as a human right.
Whenever, in any of our portfolios, we have an impact on the living situations of Canberrans, as the Deputy Chief Minister has made clear, we will be guided by a focus on concrete actions to deliver more equitable, more diverse and more sustainable housing. So I would like to take this opportunity to reflect on how work that is underway in my own portfolios has been guided by our focus on fair housing and how it will continue to express the vision that is set out in the strategy that the Deputy Chief Minister has spoken of today.
The ACT’s residential tenancies legislation is a foundation for fair relationships between people and organisations who offer their properties to house others and people who need a place to live. It covers a wide range of situations, including a lease that is signed by a family seeking to let a suburban home, the rights and responsibilities of students in share housing, and the rules and regulations for crisis accommodation providers. These are just a few examples of the diverse living situations that are covered by our residential tenancies legislation. It is important that we keep looking at the way our rental and other accommodation markets work fairly. Throughout this term, our policy on residential tenancies has been the product of close consultation and, most of all, listening to what our community has to say.
In particular, we have been looking for ways to support those who need help most: people experiencing homelessness, people facing family violence, and low income households in housing stress. This has been an ongoing process. In June 2016 the
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