Page 1978 - Week 07 - Thursday, 13 August 2020
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A former Chief Minister, Ms Katy Gallagher, said in 2001 that long-term residents of Canberra suburbs could be forced out of their homes due to rates increases. And of course that stands today. Mr Barr, in his inaugural speech in 2006, said:
Generally all Australians say they aspire to own their own home; it is the great Australian dream. The preference for home ownership prevails across age groups, household types and socioeconomic status.
He went on to say:
In 1989, almost 65 per cent of 25 to 39-year-olds had bought their first home. In 2003 that number had dropped to 54 per cent …
I have just looked up some 2020 figures. Only a smidgeon over 40 per cent of people in the 25 to 39-year-old age group have now bought their first home.
So what is going on the ACT? What is going on in the ACT is that we have some lovely strategies and policies and papers but not much actually happening on the ground. When I say on the ground, you can take that quite literally as well, because we are talking about land. We are talking about a government that holds all the policy levers for the supply of land, a government that artificially forces up the cost of land on the ground. We are talking about actual ground here.
What happens is that because the ACT government is in the position of being a monopoly owner of all land in the ACT, it controls and operates the land, planning and regulatory regime which looks at its use and disposal as well. So the housing affordability crisis that we have is entirely a problem of this government’s making over the past 19 years.
I have it said before and I will mention it again: in 2015 Mr Stanhope said that his single greatest regret as Chief Minister was lack of action on the affordable housing action plan. Nothing has changed in that regard.
A recent ABC news article, from 10 February this year, showed that ABS data had revealed the staggering difference in wealth of older Australians in owner-occupied households compared to those who rent. Economists quoted in that article said that if fewer Australians owned their own home it would have enormous consequences for all aspects of Australian life. It will lead to intergenerational inequality.
That intergenerational inequality is going to be the enduring legacy of this Labor government after 19 years in government. They are the ones who have made it unaffordable for young Canberrans to buy a house—the great Australian dream, as Mr Barr said in his inaugural speech and many of us have talked about in our inaugural speeches or speeches since.
It is time that this government said straight out, “This is our fault. We’ve done all the wrong things and we are making rental and house ownership unaffordable in the ACT. We, the Labor government, are the ones making that intergenerational inequality.”
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