Page 3214 - Week 09 - Tuesday, 18 August 2009
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process. We are looking for that to proceed. The OwnPlace initiative—the much-maligned in Liberal Party quarters OwnPlace initiative—is proceeding extremely well. We can declare at this stage that, as of this week, with respect to nine of those houses, nine of 250 families have actually moved into their OwnPlace homes—homes of a style and quality that those families would never have dreamed of owning, except for OwnPlace.
MR SPEAKER: Ms Porter, a supplementary question?
MS PORTER: Thank you, Mr Speaker. Could the Chief Minister update the Assembly on the next steps the government is taking in relation to affordability?
MR STANHOPE: I am more than happy to do that. I will conclude my previous answer by acknowledging the extent to which the OwnPlace initiative, similar to other initiatives, now that it is up and going and well ensconced, has nine house completed and nine houses moved into. I think of the order of another 100 houses are under varying stages of construction and another almost 150 on top of that are about to commence.
Similarly with land rent, certainly accepting some delays in the identification of a financier, land rent is now a reality. I understand that as of today, since the financier actually developed and finally approved a loan facility for land rent, 11 Canberra families have now received loans from CPS. Of course, as time progresses, more and more will. I think there is somewhere in the order of another 50 being accepted.
To put that in some context, this a scheme that has been completely and totally opposed by the Liberal Party. It is 11 families. It is early days. There are 11 Canberra families that will now own their own home, 11 Canberra families that the Liberal Party were happy to have never owning their own home.
To be a little bit more pragmatic than that and move away from that human dimension, there are 11 houses now being constructed, a couple of million dollars of building activity. That is what it means, not just 11 families that now will own for their first time their own home, 11 Canberra families amongst many to come—
Mr Hanson: Eight years of your government and we have the least affordable housing in Australia. That is what you have delivered.
MR STANHOPE: Not just families owning homes, families who would never have owned a home, but just the economic level of activity, the building activity engendered by another 11 houses as of today about to start construction in the ACT.
Mr Hanson: You have delivered 11 houses in eight years, Jon.
MR STANHOPE: That is more than $2 million of economic activity, more than $2 million of construction activity.
We hear Mr Hanson, beyond embarrassment, beyond shame, actually interjecting, beyond embarrassment, beyond shame. If we go back and look at the Hansard and reflect on the virulent opposition of the Liberal Party to land rent, over-my-dead-body
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