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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2002 Week 10 Hansard (29 August) . . Page.. 3023 ..
MS TUCKER (continuing):
While the former Liberal government's digital divide program was a sort of attempt to address inequity, the real digital divide between the community sector and the people who make the funding decisions is getting worse. I would love to put Treasury into a refuge for a week and ask them to make do with that equipment and those working conditions. Maybe then the next budget would see the start of a program to really invest in the sector.
Finally, there is the issue of housing. I addressed housing in quite a lot of detail when the budget was first debated, so I will not go back over the same issues. But I will make a few points about how housing is or is not integrated into the development and vision of this city.
The funding for the outcomes of the affordable housing taskforce has been the topic of some speculation. As important as community housing is, it would be a great disappointment if the affordable housing project became narrowed to simply promoting community housing. We need to ensure that the ACT stock of public housing is maintained and expanded over time. We also need to ensure that private housing in different forms is affordable. The problems we face in the ACT are not unique, and we can learn from the approach that others are taking.
The Greater London Council, for instance, is working on a plan to require a percentage of housing to be affordable. Indeed, the draft DA for the Kingston foreshore development included a requirement that at least 10 per cent of the places be affordable for people on lower incomes. It seems fairly clear that the first stage of that development is uniformly unaffordable, and that is despite the fact that the units are remarkably ordinary, not particularly environmentally innovative, not adaptable for long life, not aesthetically inspiring or innovative, and do not even seem particularly well aspected for the sun or view.
I am happy to work in the Assembly to ensure, if possible, that the next stage of the Kingston foreshore is a cutting-edge development, that it includes both public and community housing, that a substantial percentage of the units at all price levels are adaptable, and that commitment to ecological sustainability is something more than it is at the moment-which seems to be just about a token drainage pond. I think the same discussion can and should be had with QIC for the Bunda Street development, and more generally with PALM when it comes to west Civic.
MR SPEAKER: Order! The member's time has expired.
MS TUCKER: I seek an extension.
MR SPEAKER: You can have a second period of 10 minutes-but there is no compulsion to use it all.
MS TUCKER
: I will go to the second 10 minutes then. Housing-affecting, as it does, health, employment, family life and your ability to be part of a community-is, other than food perhaps, the most fundamental need that we have in our society. It seems to me that this government has a more profound understanding of the role of housing than the previous Carnell and Humphries Liberal governments. But saying the right things and
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