Page 4431 - Week 12 - Tuesday, 30 October 2018
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I present the following papers:
ACT Housing Strategy—
Ministerial statement, 30 October 2018.
Strategy, dated October 2018.
I move:
That the Assembly take note of the ministerial statement.
MS LE COUTEUR (Murrumbidgee) (10.28): First of all, I would like to thank and congratulate Minister Berry on the release of this strategy, which is clearly the most comprehensive policy document on housing since the ACT government’s 2007 affordable housing action plan. I would very much like to congratulate her on taking on the principles of Housing First. As she said in her speech, housing is one of the foundations of a happy, productive, fulfilling human life, and decent, safe, stable housing is something we all need. I would also, of course, like to congratulate the many people who have contributed to the strategy, including those who attended the housing summit in 2017, wrote submissions or provided feedback through other means; the minister’s consultative group; and also the hardworking ACT government staff who worked on this strategy.
The government has put some of the outcomes of the 2017 housing strategy summit into the strategy. If all the measures contained in the strategy are enacted, they will significantly help to ameliorate our housing crisis. Some of the components of the housing strategy are already underway. They include measures funded under the first round of the housing innovation fund, such as the not-for-profit real estate agency and the professional development and training program for front-line housing and homelessness organisations which was announced in last year’s budget. Some of the measures in this and in the strategy itself come from the Greens-Labor parliamentary agreement. I thank the minister and her directorate for her work on them.
In housing, so many of the problems have complex causes and are intertwined with other policy areas. These include areas outside the ACT government’s control, such as the federal tax and transfer systems and, in particular, speculative investment caused by the halving of the capital gains tax discounts in 1999; inadequate income support particularly for those on Newstart, and commonwealth rent assistance rates; and decades of underinvestment in social housing funding by successive commonwealth governments. Poverty, domestic and family violence, and mental illness all play a role in homelessness. Wages and the level of migration interact with the housing system and the supply and cost of housing. The increasing size of Australian houses also negatively impacts on affordability, as well as increasing the environmental impact of our housing.
I am hopeful that the government’s housing choices project and the demonstration housing project will reduce some of the barriers in our planning system to more affordable housing. As Minister Berry noted when the strategy was launched yesterday, the ACT government is on a solid foundation to deal with our housing
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