2025-07-22
Community sector advocates have revealed in Estimates today that 1000 homes out of Labor’s target of 5000 new affordable homes will be delivered by the private market as part of the land tax concession scheme–a target which community advocates say cannot be reached without greater government investment.
Quotes attributable to Leader of the ACT Greens, Shane Rattenbury:
“Labor’s target of five thousand new ‘affordable’ homes was already questionable because their definition of affordability already puts half of wage earning Canberrans definitionally into rental stress.
”But today’s news that it is dependent on private landlords putting up 1000 homes–20% of the target–really highlights the unreliability of the magic pudding maths of Labor’s target.
“This lack of reliability is underlined by the community organisations telling us that they are struggling to support more houses in the scheme, because they are not funded to deliver the volume of service announced.
“It’s clear the government is shirking its own responsibility for delivering affordable housing for Canberrans by over relying on this scheme to deliver.
“Since the launch of the scheme around five years ago, 250 generous Canberrans have offered up their properties for rental through the land-tax concession scheme and the government expects this number to somehow skyrocket to 1000 without any further incentives or any increased funding to housing providers.
“The Greens are clear: we support the land tax concession scheme through and through. It was originally a Greens proposal by my former colleague Caroline Le Couteur, that taps in to the community spirit of property owners in the city
“But the reality is, it simply cannot be the answer to 20% of our affordable housing target in this city–it’s just not realistic.
“Time and time again, we see not just this government, but governments across the country neglecting their role in fixing this cooked housing market by failing to realise that the private market and the community sector alone cannot fix this crisis. The government needs to step in and deliver a funding model for community and public housing that is actually realistic.
“This news underscores the need for Labor to get real about their target of affordable housing, and fess up that not only is their definition of ‘affordable’ incredibly flawed, but that the target of 5000 contains speculative elements.”