Canberra Liberals MLA Mark Parton, Shadow Minister for Housing and Homelessness, will call on the ACT Labor-Greens government today to “stop driving rental prices up through market-distorting” legislation, taxation, and regulation.
He will also call on the government to release more land for detached housing, and to rule out a two-year rent freeze.
“Canberra consistently has the highest rents in Australia, along with a very low vacancy rate,” Mr Parton said.
“The most recent CoreLogic figures show Canberra was the second most expensive capital city to rent in at $674 per week for all properties, well above the national average of $570 per week.”
The current vacancy rate in Canberra for units is 1.8 percent, Mr Parton noted, meaning practically nothing is available. If a home seeker is fortunate enough to secure a vacant unit, this will cost them a median $585 per week, or $2,300 per month, or $28,000 per annum. The median equivalent for a house is $34,000 per annum.
Mr Parton believes these rent levels impose massive hardship on people in lower income brackets.
“This situation is a direct result of long-term ACT government policies, which include high property rates and land tax regimes along with the tangled web of difficult and costly legislative change in the residential tenancies space.
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“It is absolutely astounding that the ACT Greens recently proposed, through a number of cabinet ministers, to freeze rents in the territory for two years.
“This proposal is dangerous, and would disincentivise the supply of rental accommodation and exacerbate the Territory’s homelessness crisis.”
Mr Parton said the ACT Labor-Greens government is choking supply: recent land ballots saw thousands of Canberrans vying for just a couple hundred blocks of land.
“The Canberra Liberals have continually called on the Barr-Rattenbury government to release more land, as recent ballots have confirmed there is a dramatic undersupply of land for detached housing in the ACT.
“The Labor-Greens government criticises the Liberals as the party hellbent on increasing the city’s footprint, and yet they’re the ones who are pushing to extend the border to accommodate the Ginninderry development.
“They’re the ones sitting on many thousands of hectares of land on the west edge of Molonglo while refusing to tell Canberrans what they intend to do with it.”
