Page 2138 - Week 06 - Thursday, 8 June 2017
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We are pleased that all this good work is being done, while also seeing the budget coming back to surplus. We have supported the plan for the ACT’s budget to go into deficit and return to surplus in this Assembly since early in the Seventh Assembly, when the global financial crisis hit. The Greens backed the plan that saw us spending on infrastructure and investing in our community. We are pleased to now be getting to the other side, while also keeping focused on sustainability and support for vulnerable Canberrans. Now that we are coming back to a surplus, we will be urging our government partners to further invest in housing initiatives to address affordability and sustainability as well as better-practice community consultation.
We will be supporting this budget but we note there a few areas we would like to see more focus on when it comes to future investment, as we look to future years of budgets. Aside from the public housing commitment, we believe there is not enough in this budget to address social or affordable housing. We believe that this is the budget’s greatest gap. We think it is vital to increase our housing and homelessness investment to support vulnerable people and, in particular, increased investment in public and community housing as part of an affordable housing package.
We look forward to the affordable housing summit later this year that will include a stream on homelessness, and the innovative ideas and proposals it will generate for a comprehensive, affordable housing strategy. We believe the ACT needs to demonstrate real leadership in tackling this issue. We cannot wait for the commonwealth government to remove negative gearing and capital gains tax. We must act locally to ensure that everyone has a decent place to live.
The parliamentary agreement outlines a range of different housing models and approaches for the government to explore over the term of this Assembly, including allowing people to be involved in new designing models of affordable housing and cooperative housing, examining renters’ rights, improving energy efficiency in homes to reduce heating and cooling bills, promoting ethical landlord schemes, increasing community housing options and ensuring that there are targets of 10 per cent affordable housing in urban infill areas and 20 per cent in greenfield developments.
I look forward to progress on a number of agreement items such as funding for MyHome, supportive housing for residents with mental illness to be built by the community with government support, as well as the roundtable and initiatives on universal housing design.
As discussed yesterday, we are concerned about the ACT housing market not constructing high quality sustainable housing. We would like to see demonstration housing precincts integrating world-class environmental performance, design and construction that caters for the needs of the 21st century. We especially need housing that shows we can do infill development better: more sustainable and more affordable.
Canberra has also set an ambitious carbon emissions target of zero carbon emissions by 2050 at the latest. We need the building sector to contribute to these progressive targets to ensure that we are protecting our environment and acting to mitigate the potentially devastating effects of climate change.
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