Page 103 - Week 01 - Tuesday, 14 February 2012
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MS LE COUTEUR (Molonglo) (4.58): I thank Mr Doszpot for bringing forward this matter of public importance today, because I think everyone in this chamber would agree that it is a matter of public importance.
Housing—secure, safe, affordable housing—is the foundation of a safe, equitable, harmonious community. People need somewhere to live, and we need to find somewhere for people to live which is affordable. Affordable housing is a big issue. It requires a whole-of-government approach. That is why it is particularly great that we are talking about it today—everybody here in the Assembly. Housing affordability, of course, has to be done in a way which is environmentally sustainable. And affordable housing has to take its place in the community as a whole. It needs to be somewhere where there is community interaction.
My colleague Ms Bresnan may talk more about those issues. There is also public housing, which is a major part of the affordable housing issue. I am now down to only 8½ minutes, so I will talk a bit more about some of the other issues. Firstly, I go to the issue of land supply, which has been touched upon by both the previous speakers. We have to recognise that the ACT is landlocked. We have a finite amount of land, and it is important that we use it as best we can.
In that context, it is very important that we preserve endangered ecosystems. Mr Barr mentioned the EPBC referrals. Obviously the Greens believe that there should be full environmental assessments of all land that is going to be developed but, particularly in the case of Gungahlin, we think these referrals should have been done much earlier, probably years earlier. But in recognition of the fact the ACT does have a very limited amount of land, we need to be very careful that what development we do is high quality and meets the needs of the people of Canberra.
I was struck by a quote in the Canberra Times on Monday from Viv Straw, the ACT president of the Australian institute of planning. He said that during housing shortages developers of new houses basically wanted to avoid making costly mistakes, so they “usually built homes that had been profitable in the past, whether or not they suited people’s accommodation needs”. He said:
It can mean you are repeating the mistakes of the past …
I thought that was a very interesting statement; it is something that we all need to try and take account of. We have a limited amount of land. We do not want to repeat the mistakes of the past. We need to ensure that, as much as possible, we use the existing infill sites and use them well. I am pleased to see that that is one of the issues in the planning strategy, but I think the planning strategy was fairly uncreative. When I say “the planning strategy” I mean the draft ACT planning strategy. It was very uncreative as far as affordable housing goes.
The government strategy for affordable housing has a target of a 25 per cent increase in the number and percentage of dwellings that are not detached houses in each district or town. Why? Housing types in Canberra other than detached housing do not appear to be a lot cheaper than detached housing. This is just not an affordable housing strategy.
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