Labor Conference in Adelaide: Program on affordable housing and $75/week cut on rent unveiled
In a pitch to heartland battlers, Labor has unveiled a multibillion-dollar plan to build 250,000 homes across the country and save struggling South Australian households about $75 a week on rent.
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Shorten to feel protest bite over the Bight
Heckler of a trip at the market
Pressure to raise Newstart cash
In a pitch to heartland battlers, Labor has unveiled a multibillion-dollar plan to build 250,000 homes across the country and save struggling South Australian households about $75 a week on rent.
Announcing the program in Adelaide today, Opposition Leader Bill Shorten said the plan — the biggest-ever investment in affordable housing — would help more low to moderate income earners save to buy their own homes.
“Access to housing stands as one of the biggest challenges in addressing intergenerational inequality,” Mr Shorten said.
“There is a persistent and increasing wealth gap which is locking Australians out of the housing market.
“Increasing the supply of affordable housing is critical to addressing pressures on disposable income, and in turn, addressing inequality.”
In September, the Sunday Mail Your Say survey showed seven out of 10 respondents thought the average child would not be able to buy a house in the future.
Mr Shorten said if elected Labor would offer 15-year subsidies — $8500 a year — to investors who built new houses provided they rented them out at 20 per cent below market rent.
In South Australia, it would mean a struggling family that is paying the state’s median rent of $375 a week would instead pay $300 — saving $75 a week.
A family paying the national rental average of $462 a week could save $92 a week under the plan.
Mr Shorten said the affordable housing plan, worth $6.6 billion over the next decade, would encourage housing construction including an estimated 20,000 new homes and units in the first term of a government he leads.
He said the plan would also “support” negative gearing reforms the party has already introduced that would stop investors from buying existing housing stock for negative gearing.
“I want people in their 20s and people in their 30s to be able to buy their first home.
“How is it fair that when someone is going to an auction they are buying their fifth house with a taxpayer subsidy bidding unfairly against a first homebuyer couple?”
The plan comes with conditions.
Properties will have to have environmentally sustainable housing that helps to reduce energy consumption.
And one in 10 jobs during construction and maintenance of properties will go to an Australian apprentice.
Overseas students, temporary foreign workers, and other non-residents will not be eligible tenants.
“Labor will work with community housing providers, the residential construction sector and institutional investors to generate economic growth and new construction jobs,” Mr Shorten said.
“The plan will support Labor’s negative gearing reforms which direct concessions to newly built premises and encourage housing construction.”
Shorten to feel protest bite over the Bight
By Matt Smith
Bill Shorten says he will put the environment above dollars when considering whether drilling should take place in the Great Australian Bight.
Drilling in the Bight is shaping as one of the biggest environmental issues heading into next year’s federal election.
Protesters are expected to converge on Labor’s National Conference in Adelaide today to call for a ban on drilling in the region.
In an exclusive interview with the Sunday Mail,Mr Shorten said a better environment was good for Australia.
“If I am prime minister, I am not going to support any degradation or harm to the environment, no matter what some of the big oil companies argue,” Mr Shorten said.
“I think we have an obligation to hand on not just a better economy to the next generation but a better environment.
“I am not going to sacrifice everything for the dollar.
“A strong environment is actually good for Australia.”
Industry insiders have raised concerns with the Sunday Mail that internally the party is divided on what to do about the Bight.
Australian Petroleum Production and Exploration Association spokesman Matt Doman was not concerned about Mr Shorten’s comments.
“We share that commitment (to the environment),” Mr Doman said.
“We won’t get approval from (regulator) NOPSEMA if we are putting the environment at risk.
“We have to make sure there is no negative impact on existing industries or coastal communities and we are committed to doing that.”
Today, hundreds of people are expected to converge to protest outside the Labor Party’s conference, calling for the ALP to stop the expansion of the fossil fuel industry, including stopping oil drilling in the Great Australian Bight, if it wins government at the next election.
Wilderness Society South Australia director Peter Owen said it was “insane Australia is opening up new oil, gas and coal frontiers when we know we need to stop burning fossil fuels”.
“Expanding the fossil fuel industry is the height of irresponsibility,” he said.
“It is not an option if we are to have any chance of providing our children with a liveable climate.”
Heckler of a trip at the market
By Adam Langenberg
Bill Shorten caused quite a stir at the Adelaide Central Market yesterday during his 32nd visit to the city as Opposition Leader.
A young man eating breakfast yelled at Mr Shorten to “increase Newstart” almost as soon as he walked in the door, and it only got more interesting from there.
A fruit and vegetable stall worker told a customer the man being shadowed by camera crews and at least five staff members was “going to be the next prime minister”.
But for at least 15 minutes, Mr Shorten’s media conference looked like being overshadowed by a handful of protesters urging him to stop Adani mining Queensland’s Galilee Basin for coal.
They held #StopAdani signs as he visited stall holders, heckling him to “take action on climate change” as he sampled Kangaroo Island honey.
And they returned as he started addressing the media about Labor’s national conference, to be held at Adelaide Entertainment Centre from today, chanting so loudly neither questions nor answers could be heard.
Mr Shorten, flanked by his wife Chloe and children, disarmed the protesters by offering to talk with them once he’d finished addressing other issues.
“If you don’t respect the offer of a conversation, if you don’t respect the idea that there’s other issues important … I can’t stop you but that would be a bit of a shame and it might undermine the importance of your point,” he said.
It’s the kind of diplomacy needed to win battles on the floor of the national conference, and help win over undecided voters in the lead-up to next year’s election.
Pressure to raise Newstart cash
LABOR looks set to back in Bill Shorten’s plan to undertake a review of welfare payments, despite a push for the party to adopt a $75 a week increase to Newstart.
South Australia’s most powerful union, the Shop, Distributive and Allied Employees Association (SDA), will back a review at today’s national conference.
SDA assistant secretary Josh Peak said the union believed that Newstart was fundamentally too low and unable to provide job seekers with the adequate financial support they need.
“The SDA supports a review being conducted by Labor in government which leads to an increase in Newstart,” Mr Peak said.
However, others, including SA’s Anti-Poverty Network and the South Australian Council of Social Services (SACOSS), want Labor to commit to a dollar figure.
Today a choir of welfare recipients and their supporters will greet delegates with a reworked version of It’s Time, Labor’s famous political jingle from Gough Whitlam’s 1972 federal election campaign.
SACOSS chief executive Ross Womersley said it was patently clear that the levels of Newstart and youth allowances were appallingly inadequate. In South Australia, there are about 68,000 recipients of Newstart Allowance. Of those, about 67 per cent have received the payment for 12 months or more.
About 8,500 South Australians aged between 16 and 21 receive youth allowance.
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