Mrs PRICE - 2012-10-24
The price and availability of housing is preventing Territorians from owning their homes. Is the minister aware of any delays or failures to invest in infrastructure that may be contributing to the housing problem in the Territory?
ANSWER
Madam Speaker, I thank the member for Stuart and, being a good Centralian, I will answer this in the context of Central Australia. The great Australian dream is to own your own home and that dream should be available to all Territorians. As a government, we need to be building the infrastructure and either developing or making the land available to developers to create house blocks for people to buy their dream home for themselves and their families.
Under the previous Labor government the supply of house blocks slowed to a trickle with the result being that house prices went through the roof, as my colleague the Minister for Housing has recently said. Houses in the Northern Territory have become unaffordable and that is not a result of there being no potential land to develop. As the Chief Minister said, it is because the previous government was unable to get their act together and release land in a timely fashion.
In Alice Springs, for example, there is a huge parcel of land south of the gap - a greenfields site, Leader of the Opposition - known as Kilgariff. You much lauded that during your term of government. Despite money being provided in Budget 2011-12 18 months ago, that site is still largely a greenfields site. Services and the road have been built to the boundary but it stops there. There has been inertia over the planning decisions being made about how that can go forward, with numerous plans put forward but government not making a decision.
The previous government had been unable to finalise a design and a plan, so the contractors sit idle, house blocks go undeveloped, and Territorians see the availability and affordability of their own home slip further out of their reach. Unfortunately, in this case it is not a lack of money that has prevented the infrastructure, because the money is there. It is because the previous government was in a cycle of inertia and failed to act.
We know that the previous government turned its back on Central Australia. We have heard the former Chief Minister carping about Alice Springs already today, but the fact is it turned its back and Kilgariff is a perfect example of that. There is money set aside in the budget without the work actually being done ...
Ms LAWRIE: A point of order, Madam Speaker! How is the expenditure of $10m on the infrastructure and $3.5m in Budget 2012-13 turning your back?
Madam SPEAKER: Leader of the Opposition, there is no point of order.
Mr GILES: Thank you, Madam Speaker. I suggest that if we cannot get our standing order numbers correct we may have to move towards naming. This is becoming ridiculous with the Leader of the Opposition wanting to jump in all the time. But the point is that there is a greenfield site there, Kilgariff. The road goes to the block. There are potentially thousands of blocks of land there. Presentation is going back to June of 2008. Here we are six years later and nothing has happened. It is now our job to clean up your mess - your inertia, your mess. We will do the job you could not do. Thank you, member for Stuart, for your question.
ANSWER
Madam Speaker, I thank the member for Stuart and, being a good Centralian, I will answer this in the context of Central Australia. The great Australian dream is to own your own home and that dream should be available to all Territorians. As a government, we need to be building the infrastructure and either developing or making the land available to developers to create house blocks for people to buy their dream home for themselves and their families.
Under the previous Labor government the supply of house blocks slowed to a trickle with the result being that house prices went through the roof, as my colleague the Minister for Housing has recently said. Houses in the Northern Territory have become unaffordable and that is not a result of there being no potential land to develop. As the Chief Minister said, it is because the previous government was unable to get their act together and release land in a timely fashion.
In Alice Springs, for example, there is a huge parcel of land south of the gap - a greenfields site, Leader of the Opposition - known as Kilgariff. You much lauded that during your term of government. Despite money being provided in Budget 2011-12 18 months ago, that site is still largely a greenfields site. Services and the road have been built to the boundary but it stops there. There has been inertia over the planning decisions being made about how that can go forward, with numerous plans put forward but government not making a decision.
The previous government had been unable to finalise a design and a plan, so the contractors sit idle, house blocks go undeveloped, and Territorians see the availability and affordability of their own home slip further out of their reach. Unfortunately, in this case it is not a lack of money that has prevented the infrastructure, because the money is there. It is because the previous government was in a cycle of inertia and failed to act.
We know that the previous government turned its back on Central Australia. We have heard the former Chief Minister carping about Alice Springs already today, but the fact is it turned its back and Kilgariff is a perfect example of that. There is money set aside in the budget without the work actually being done ...
Ms LAWRIE: A point of order, Madam Speaker! How is the expenditure of $10m on the infrastructure and $3.5m in Budget 2012-13 turning your back?
Madam SPEAKER: Leader of the Opposition, there is no point of order.
Mr GILES: Thank you, Madam Speaker. I suggest that if we cannot get our standing order numbers correct we may have to move towards naming. This is becoming ridiculous with the Leader of the Opposition wanting to jump in all the time. But the point is that there is a greenfield site there, Kilgariff. The road goes to the block. There are potentially thousands of blocks of land there. Presentation is going back to June of 2008. Here we are six years later and nothing has happened. It is now our job to clean up your mess - your inertia, your mess. We will do the job you could not do. Thank you, member for Stuart, for your question.
Last updated: 09 Aug 2016