Page 3075 - Week 09 - Thursday, 13 October 2022
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Every member of Labor and the Greens voted against that motion, with the responsible ministers stating that they were well aware of, and they understood very well, the root causes of poverty and disadvantage in the ACT. Ms Davidson said that the ACT government had already committed to addressing poverty in Canberra through a number of different levers. Yet, close to two years on, the problems of poverty and homelessness in the ACT have not improved. In fact, the problems are arguably worse now than they were then. If where we are now is what addressing poverty looks like, and if where we are now is a result of what this Labor-Greens government knows and understands about addressing poverty, then I hold very serious concerns for the large number of Canberrans who are doing it very tough!
According to the most recent ACT Council of Social Service, or ACTCOSS, cost-of-living report, the poverty rate of the ACT is currently estimated to be approximately nine per cent. That figure comprises more than 38,000 Canberrans living below the poverty line. More than 9,000 of those Canberrans that have been left behind are children. The ACT also has the highest rate of rental stress in Australia among lower-income private-rental households. This means that more than 73 per cent of Canberrans residing in households of this classification are spending more than 30 per cent of their gross household income on housing.
As Canberra continues to suffer from the Labor and the Greens’ heartless policy of deliberately strangling land supply, and an inaccessible rental market that is the most expensive in Australia for both houses and units, these figures are unsurprising yet deeply concerning. None of this is new information of course. Despite many words and promises from this Labor-Greens government, these figures have not improved. In fact, according to ACTCOSS more than two-thirds of Community Services senior staff in the ACT have reported that levels of poverty and disadvantage amongst vulnerable groups have actually increased over the past year.
Whilst the ACT may still have the highest median income of any Australian jurisdiction, and one of the lowest unemployment rates, these figures cannot be used to justify complacency and stagnancy on the part of this Labor-Greens government when tackling the issue of poverty. The numbers do not lie, and the divide between the haves and the have-nots under this government has continued to widen. Yet this government continues to have the hubris to act as if it has not been responsible for years of neglect in the housing and community services sectors.
Even within the most recent 2022-23 budget, community services continued to remain “chronically underfunded”, as the CEO of ACTCOSS has previously characterised it. The level and scope of their investment has been the equivalent of what ACTCOSS says is treading water. This Labor-Greens government is out of touch with Canberrans, and they deserve so much better.
My motion is very simple, and calls on the government to commission an independent inquiry into the prevalence of poverty in the ACT and examine the rates and drivers of poverty; the relationship between economic conditions—including fiscal policy, rising inflation and the cost of living pressures—and poverty; the impact of poverty on individuals in relation to employment, housing security, health and education outcomes; the effect of poverty in different demographics and communities; the
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