With the ACT Election four months away, Canberra Daily is asking organisations around Canberra for their perspectives on key issues, the ACT Government’s accomplishments, and what an incoming government should focus on.
Joel Dignam is the Executive Director of Better Renting, a community of renters working together for stable, affordable, and healthy homes. Mr Dignam has a background in organising and campaigning across non-profits, unions, and electoral politics. He studied Leadership, Organizing and Action with Professor Marshall Ganz through Harvard’s Kennedy School of Executive Education, and he holds an Advanced Diploma of Management from the Groupwork Institute of Australia. In 2022 he completed a Churchill Fellowship through the US and the UK, learning from tenant movement organisations. (See also his opinion piece last year.)
What do you regard as the ACT Government’s successes in the current term?
When it comes to housing, the ACT Government has begun to turn things around. Renting in Canberra is still expensive, but things are gradually shifting in the right direction. Over the last four years, we’ve seen improvements to tenancy laws, including the introduction of a minimum ceiling insulation standard for rental homes and an end to unfair no grounds evictions. At the same time, Canberra’s vacancy rate has been going up, and rents have stayed relatively flat, even while costs are increasing in the rest of the country. It shows what is possible.
What could have been handled better – or left aside?
Better Renting and other members of Missing Middle Canberra have been calling for changes to the planning system that will make it legal to build more housing in Canberra suburbs. But under former planning minister Mick Gentleman, the ACT Government botched the approach to planning reform. They proposed shallow, tokenistic changes that wouldn’t make a real difference. Signs from the new Minister, Chris Steel, are more promising, but this still represents a missed opportunity to have acted on this more promptly and with more whole-hearted commitment.
What do you see as the major issues that an incoming government will have to deal with?
Cost of living is a major challenge for people all over Australia now, and this remains true in the ACT, where high average salaries can hide the disadvantage that does exist. Housing is a major challenge here.
What should the government’s priorities be? What policy initiatives or reforms might be useful to meet the challenges ahead?
In the next Assembly we’d like to see action to tighten laws around rent increases – while the ACT’s laws are currently stronger than elsewhere in Australia, there are still serious gaps. On the energy efficiency of rental homes, Victoria is proposing a standard that will include ceiling insulation as well as draught proofing, hot water systems, and efficient heating and cooling. The ACT could look to expand its own existing rental standards, possibly also including rooftop solar. And then we’d also want to see a more ambitious investment in public housing: while affordability is gradually improving in the private rental market, the ACT Government still has a responsibility to ensure there are enough affordable homes provided for people.
