LAND RELEASES MORE AFFORDABLE CAPITAL

Today, Ms Mary Porter MLA, Member for Ginninderra, successfully moved a motion in the Legislative Assembly that acknowledged the provision for accelerated land release in the ACT as central to the current state of health of the local economy.

“It is clear to me that the foresight of this government in increasing the speed at which land is released is fundamental to the current healthy state of our economy,” said Ms Porter.

“As any good Labor government should, we have also initiated a range of programs that serves to support those people on modest incomes. This range of programs includes the OwnPlace initiative, a mandated 15% affordable housing in new estates and the Land Rent Scheme.”

The motion, passed without amendments, noted April’s CommSec State of the States report, which ranks the ACT as the best performing economy in the country, drawing attention to the CommSec commentary that this performance is to a considerable degree attributable to the ACT Government’s accelerated land release program, and the impact of these releases on residential construction activity.

“The CommSec Report is not the only report that has commended the Government in this respect. The recent Access Economics Business Outlook released 27 April 2010 states: “...the ACT benefited from being one of the earlier jurisdictions to recognise the need to increase the pace of land release...the greater availability of land and houses means that population growth is still on the up at a time when it has turned down for Australia as a whole”. This is great news for the ACT,” Ms Porter said.

“Owning a home is to the future aspirations of Canberrans, and I am proud of the Government’s determination to put in place measures to make this dream a reality.”

“The Land Release Program, balanced with initiatives such as OwnPlace and the Land Rent Scheme, is fundamental to the Government’s agenda,” Ms Porter said.

Statement Ends
Media Contact: Andrew Hunter 02 6205 0428 bh 0431 739 775