Federal budget bid for affordable houses
A major federal budget bid will be launched next week for affordable dwellings, according to a coalition of 60 leading housing affordability and community welfare advocacy groups.
The coalition, Australians for Affordable Housing (AAH), have recently a
A major federal budget bid will be launched next week for cheaper dwellingsnnounced that they will be pushing up their campaign.
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Asking the Federal Government to deliver low-cost homes to Australians, and advising them on strategy, is the first part of their plan.
“This year we’re going to ramp up the campaign for affordable housing,” AAH campaign manager Sarah Toohey said.
“We have been busy planning out the next 12 months and next week we will be launching a major federal budget bid.”
As well as delivering a budget statement, the campaign will include encouraging a clear national plan to deliver housing, low cost rentals and opportunities for low income households to buy property.
Financial assistance for low income renters, fairer housing investment tax arrangements and assistance for first home buyers are also focus points of their campaign.
“In the last ten years house prices have risen by 147 per cent while incomes have risen by only 57 per cent and in the last five years rents have risen at twice the rate of inflation,” Ms Toohey told the government earlier this year.
AAH believe that all government levels currently influence the housing market through tax incentinves, first home owners grants, planning controls and other policies.
"There is no overarching plan to drive these interventions and the result is they are not coordinated, often contradictory and ultimately ineffective," an AAH campaign release explains.
The involvement of the Federal Government is crucial to their campaign, and Ms Toohey says that only the involvement of a national authority can fix the housing crisis.
The AAH announcement was preceded by RP Data-Rismark statistics showing that house prices over the December quarter in Sydney did report a 0.7 per cent rise.
However, capital cities saw a seasonally adjusted home value decline of 0.5 per cent.
The Australian Bureau of Statistics results saw drops in all capital cities apart from Perth, Canberra and Hobart for the same quarter, with Sydney dropping in value by 1 per cent.
