Page 1977 - Week 07 - Wednesday, 3 June 2015
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I wonder whether the public housing renewal program will be as ineffective as phase 3 of the government’s affordable housing action plan appears to be. One of the actions identified in the affordable housing action plan, one of the actions that has been largely unactioned, was to:
Investigate a requirement for the delivery of public and community housing stock in large infill and greenfield residential developments.
We could look at that and ask why this Labor government is not demanding the delivery of public and community housing in the Northbourne corridor. That requirement is out on the scrapheap with the rest of the affordable housing action plan, because we all know housing is not getting any more affordable in Canberra.
It is clear that this government is charging after the ideological pursuit of light rail down this corridor at any expense. And, sadly, in this case, it is at the expense of public housing tenants, who will be pushed out to suburbs further and further out, whether they like it or not. For those people who need ready access to services, to education and training, to employment and to transport, this may not be the best option for them. Those who wish to stay on this corridor should be supported to do so. I commend this motion to the Assembly.
MS BERRY (Ginninderra—Minister for Housing, Minister for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Affairs, Minister for Community Services, Minister for Multicultural Affairs, Minister for Women and Minister assisting the Chief Minister on Social Inclusion and Equality) (3.52): I move:
Omit all words after “That this Assembly”, substitute:
“(1) notes:
(a) the Government’s strong commitment to deliver Stage 1 of the Capital Metro project from the Canberra CBD to Gungahlin;
(b) that the Government has entered into an asset recycling initiative with the Federal Government, and that the proceeds from this initiative will be directed to the Capital Metro project;
(c) that the Government has commenced a major public housing renewal program, including 1288 older public housing properties across the ACT which are included in the asset recycling initiative signed with the Federal Government;
(d) that the public housing properties included in the public housing renewal program were built in the early days of Canberra, do not meet the needs of today’s tenants and are expensive for people to live in due to their poor energy efficiency and high maintenance costs;
(e) that the 2015-2016 ACT Budget includes an investment of more than $159 million for replacement housing for 352 public housing properties as part of this program;
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