Page 3589 - Week 10 - Wednesday, 18 September 2019
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video
Finally, I am proposing a letter from Mr Barr, Mr Rattenbury and Mr Coe to the Prime Minister asking for relief on the historic housing debt or at the very least an agreement that the ACT can refinance on the open market. As I mentioned earlier, Mr Coe asked a lot of questions about this debt in the estimates hearing. I am hopeful that this is a sign that he is interested in talking to his federal colleagues about how this could be waived. This would be in the best interests of the ACT.
I hope Mr Coe will support this letter, because I know it would have a lot more weight with his federal colleagues if he supported it, rather than if it were just supported by the Labor Party and the Greens. Even if the Chief Minister signed such a letter, in this instance the signature of the Leader of the Opposition would have a lot more weight.
I take the Leader of the Opposition quite seriously as being concerned about affordable housing in the ACT. One of the most obvious ways to do it is—like Jacqui Lambie just achieved for Tasmania and previously the South Australian government achieved—waiving the historic housing debt of the territory to the federal government. If that came with some conditions about increased investment in housing, that would seem to be basically a good idea.
I am afraid the Greens cannot support Mr Coe’s motion unamended because we think it wrongly places the blame for housing unaffordability on the ACT government. It is a national problem. The ACT government has only a small role in this. The ACT government does not determine federal taxation policies. Whatever you say about the ACT government, it does not determine population policies.
I have put forward an amendment that highlights the role of the federal government in this issue. My amendment proposes four modest actions that would make a small but positive difference. While I would like to do more, the actions I have proposed are intended to be politically acceptable to both the Labor Party and the Liberal Party. Given this, I welcome support from all members of the Assembly who are interested in affordable housing for the people of Canberra, and I think that has got to be all members of the Assembly.
MR PARTON (Brindabella) (5.05): Ms Le Couteur is right in regard to a number of things in her amendment, but we will not be supporting it. It is impossible to get away from the fact that this government’s land supply, planning system and tax regime are the major drivers of housing affordability in the ACT. One thing that is different from all the other jurisdictions that Ms Le Couteur spoke of is that this government is in control of the land supply and the planning, which of course is not the case in all those other jurisdictions.
There is no question about the fact that this government’s land supply, planning system and tax regime are the major drivers of housing unaffordability in the ACT. I know it. Mr Coe knows it. Mr Stanhope knows it. Mr Stanhope and Mr Ahmed have been trumpeting from the rooftops this very fact. The former Labor Chief Minister has been articulating very clearly and very loudly that so many of the problems that we see in this space are caused by the manipulation of the market by this government. Again, this is the place where the government has all the levers in
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video