Elizabeth Lee statement on the ACT Greens housing policy

This unachievable policy put forward by the ACT Greens, a coalition partner that has been in government with Labor since 2012, would be disastrous for the future of the ACT.

This approach to housing is nothing more than grandstanding by the ACT Greens and a cut and paste copy of the Federal Greens policy that was widely slammed by a number of property experts.

The Labor-Greens government already fails to meet its own land release targets; how would it be any different going forward?

There is no realistic explanation of how these tens of thousands of new homes will be delivered. If they haven’t delivered more public housing dwellings in the 12 years they’ve been in government, they won’t ever deliver them.

Labor and the Greens have long neglected public housing. We have fewer public housing dwellings now than a decade ago; all under a current Greens Minister in charge of homelessness and housing services. Let's not forget that the Leader of the ACT Greens and former Greens Housing Minister, Shane Rattenbury, helped sell hundreds of public housing dwellings to pay for the tram.

By their own admission, this policy will cost Canberra taxpayers $5.9 billion which will put the Territory's finances into an even more diabolical state. 

So far, the ACT Greens want to spend more than $4 billion on the tram to Woden and now want to spend almost $6 billion on a policy that will do nothing to fix the mess they have created with public housing.

Canberrans will soon be paying almost $2 million a day in interest repayments on this government’s eyewatering debt. Imagine the impact of this policy on Canberrans’ hip pockets during a cost of living crisis.

This announcement demonstrates exactly why it is dangerous having Greens in government and if this is what Andrew Barr’s Cabinet Minister for Homelessness and Housing Services is putting forward as policy, Canberrans have every right to be seriously concerned