Page 4521 - Week 13 - Tuesday, 26 November 2019
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pay for their rental bond. Between November 2018 and 30 June this year, 644 new digital applications were received.
Another focus of the strategy is to work closely with the community housing sector to grow and diversify its capacity. In June the release of land via an expression of interest process for affordable housing in Taylor makes available six lots, comprising a total of 59 dwellings, which are restricted to registered community housing providers. The ACT government is also supporting Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander managed community housing providers in the ACT to build their capacity. This work has been guided through dedicated consultation workshops with the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander community.
Under goal 5 of the ACT housing strategy, the government is working to provide Canberrans with more affordable homes for purchase. In this first year of the strategy, the government’s affordable home purchase program was developed to assist low to moderate income earners to enter the home ownership market. The program has received approximately 135 eligible applicants and five developments with an affordable dwelling requirement on offer to the eligible applicants.
In the second year further work will be done to grow and diversify the community housing sector. This will include investing mechanisms to reduce the cost of land to support affordable rentals. The land tax exemption pilot has been extended and further financial incentives will be investigated to encourage the delivery of affordable home purchase dwellings on privately held leases. I look forward to updating our community as this work progresses. I present the following paper:
ACT Housing Strategy and Implementation Plan—Annual update—Ministerial statement, 26 November 2019.
I move:
That the Assembly take note of the paper.
MS LE COUTEUR (Murrumbidgee) (10.31): I am very pleased to see the housing minister present a report to the Assembly. Housing is one of the red-hot issues in the ACT at present. Anglicare’s surveys continue to reveal that there is basically nothing affordable in the ACT and district for someone on social security payments or the minimum wage. Occasionally there are one or two properties, but effectively those parts of our population are well and truly priced out of our market. To put it mildly, that is not good. From that point of view I am really pleased that we have a housing strategy and I am really pleased that the minister has reported on it.
Having said that, I am less than 100 per cent pleased at the progress revealed in this strategy. Obviously I only got this this morning have just a couple of not even dot points to speak on. The minister says a key action is to dedicate at least 15 per cent of the annual land release target to the provision of community, public and affordable housing. That is really good. The question is: at what price?
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