Page 2347 - Week 08 - Wednesday, 29 August 2007
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If the Treasurer were keen to keep his promise of being more honest, more open and more accountable, he would do it immediately.
Housing affordability is an issue that is being dealt with by Treasury as well. It is a vexed issue. It is probably not a simple issue, but over the past couple of weeks—indeed, over the past couple of months—there have been a number of reports and a couple of seminars that simply point to the cause of housing affordability. A gentleman by the name of Bob Day wrote a book called Home truths: what happened to the great Australian dream. You just have to read the summary on the back, which says:
In this paper by Bob Day he:
• examines the social and economic consequences of declining home ownership, confronts the tyranny of urban planning—
And we are overthrowing now the regime that Mr Corbell, the failed planning minister, had in place from 2001 through to the bill that was passed last week. The summary goes on:
• exposes the culpability of State & Territory land management agencies
• reveals the truth and lies about urban growth
(Second speaking period taken.) I will not take all of the extra 10 minutes, Mr Speaker, but if you tempt me I could. I know how much you understand what home ownership means to the ordinary individual, and as the only voice of the little person in this big-spending, big-taxing cover-up sort of government, I know that you are interested in this stuff.
Not only did we have Bob Day saying that in his book, the UDIA, the Urban Development Institute of Australia, has said that in 2001 on all indicators in all areas in the ACT we have greed. Greed in this case means affordable. So under the policies of the previous Liberal government land and homes were affordable in the ACT as judged by the UDIA.
From 2002 through to 2006, as a consequence of planning regimes and land release policies—and that is what they put it down to—we have moved close in all areas in the ACT to a crisis in housing affordability. That is the independent assessment of the Urban Development Institute of Australia and that is what it has said publicly. That has been backed up in a seminar that was held a couple of weeks ago at the National Press Club, where international speakers, including a speaker from England, as well as local speakers, heads of a number of the larger development companies in Australia, basically said state and territory governments are making it hard to acquire land, and once you acquire land, are making it almost impossible to develop it without adding tens of thousands of dollars in costs that should not be there.
That is what is funding Jon Stanhope’s surpluses. That is what is funding the Chief Minister’s windfall. It is property, property, property. As we all know, there is only a finite amount of property in the ACT that we can continue to sell. When it has gone, what will build the bridge to the future that the Chief Minister is so keen on seeing
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