Page 501 - Week 02 - Thursday, 11 February 2021
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educated people and the highest rentals, we also have the most expensive out-of-pocket childcare costs.
We know some of the triggers for this poverty cycle and we have the statistics and evidence from many community groups as to the depth and range of some of the problems. What we need, however, is a coordinated, policy-based approach to getting the full picture to confirm what the community groups are already telling us, to exhaust the search in finding the root causes of poverty, particularly those that are unseen or hidden, and to finding solutions.
We have a lack of affordable housing, with median rental for houses at $657 and units at $473. The Anglicare rental affordability snapshot has for some years made assessments of the housing market for people on low incomes. They suggest that for most people on low incomes rent should not exceed 30 per cent of a household budget, to avoid financial stress. This is an internationally accepted benchmark drawn from years of study into the cost of living and how it affects people. This is the benchmark that Anglicare Australia uses. The Anglicare rental affordability snapshot for 2020 identified only four per cent of properties being affordable for someone on the minimum wage.
The rental affordability index, or the RAI, produced by National Shelter, Bendigo Bank, the Brotherhood of St Laurence, and SGS Economic and Planning, painted the same picture. The RAI found that Canberra pensioners and single people on JobSeeker payments were the hardest hit groups when it came to meeting rental payments.
ACTCOSS data tells us that, over the past five years, the Canberra CPI for rent has increased by 7.1 per cent, well above the increase in the national CPI for rent of 3.7 per cent. Real estate industry data shows that, over the past five years, rents for houses and units in Canberra have increased by 28 per cent and 22 per cent respectively, the second highest increase across Australian capital cities during this time. Over the past year, the ACT has consistently had the highest median house rent price and the second highest median unit rent price. Over the year from June 2019 to June 2020, the ACT was the only state or territory where rental affordability declined.
Anglicare’s rental affordability snapshot, in April 2020, found that on a random weekend survey there were no affordable rentals for a person on a disability support pension; there were no affordable rentals for a couple with one low-income worker and one stay-at-home parent; there were no affordable rentals for a person on a parental payment. Even with the COVID-19 supplement, only 2.5 per cent more rentals became affordable.
All this information is known and available. Similar information was recognised, if not as well documented, 20 years ago. What has changed in the intervening two decades? In reality, it seems not much, except that poverty and disadvantage have become more widespread. We have a Labor-Greens coalition that talks the talk, but when it comes to doing something: “No, not us.” We saw that in action in their response to your motion yesterday, Mr Deputy Speaker.
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