Wednesday, 4 August 2021

Housing affordability

Ms SETTLE (Buninyong) (09:52): Earlier this year I asked the Ballarat region to tell me how housing affordability was affecting them, and today I am proud to release the report to the community. I want to thank the many members of the community who made a submission and the 26 stakeholders who participated in an interview or made a submission, and I particularly want to thank parliamentary intern Brad Woolley, who brought together the submissions, researched the local facts and made workable suggestions to deal with housing affordability in our region.

We have all seen the dramatic rises in house prices and rents in our region. This is having a disproportionate impact on the young, those on Centrelink, our First Nations people, those fleeing domestic violence, migrants and refugees. I am proud of the Andrews government’s Big Housing Build social housing program, which will invest at least $115 million in Ballarat, Moorabool and Golden Plains, but I believe there is more that we can do. I will be working with the City of Ballarat and Moorabool and Golden Plains councils to look at planning approvals and identify new locations for social housing, as the Big Housing Build is investing $1.25 billion in regional areas. And I will be taking the case for inclusionary zoning to the Minister for Housing. Inclusionary zoning would mandate or create incentives so a proportion of new residential development has affordable housing. This is a way that we can build communities which include housing for those who cannot afford to rent or buy in the current market.