ACT Budget: community organisations share budget wishlist
We asked Canberra-based community service organisations, peak bodies and business advocacy groups what they want to see addressed in the upcoming ACT Budget. Here’s what they said.
Canberra Star
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The ACT Government will release its 2022-23 budget early next month and community organisations and business advocates are on the edge of their seats to see where vital funds will go.
We spoke with leaders from five community led organisations and asked them what they would like to see government invest in.
ACT Council of Social Services
The ACT Council Of Social Services (ACTCOSS) advocates for social justice in the nation’s capital and represents not-for-profit community organisations.
ACTCOSS CEO Dr Emma Campbell said her top three budget priorities are support for housing, cost of living, and investment in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities and services.
“Canberra remains the most expensive capital city to rent a house or a unit and the ACT has the highest rate of rental stress among low-income private renters,” she said.
“Alongside a chronic lack of affordable private rental properties, the ACT has a shortage of over 5500 social and affordable housing dwellings.”
Dr Campbell said more than 38,000 Canberrans, including 9000 children, were living below the poverty line.
“The recent increases in cost of living have been staggering and disproportionately affect every facet of life for people on low incomes,” she said.
“More people are seeking support from ACT community sector organisations due to the rising cost of living and declining real value of income support.”
Dr Campbell said the ACT was a long way away from closing the gap.
“Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children in the ACT are 13 times more likely to be in out-of-home care than non-indigenous children,” she said.
“The ACT community has long been calling for more investment in Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander Community Controlled Organisations.”
Greater Canberra
Greater Canberra is an advocacy group which pushes for affordable, liveable and sustainable housing in Canberra.
Group Convenor Howard Maclean said building more medium density homes in Canberra’s established suburbs could “stabilise Canberra’s skyrocketing housing costs, and allow more people to live around the corner from jobs and community”.
Mr Maclean said he wants to see the ACT Government put housing affordability front and centre in its economic plan for the ACT.
“Our analysis indicates that Canberra’s high rents are damaging the local economy by turning many would-be workers away from the ACT, increasing economic inequality, and diverting money away from local businesses,” he said.
“The good news is there’s huge opportunities for the ACT Government to make a big difference to housing affordability by allowing more housing options across the ACT.”
Mr Maclean said he wanted the government to see increased housing supply as a core objective of economic planning in the new draft ACT Planning bill.
He said the government could speed up supply of private and social housing by “bringing forward public housing investment, streamlining our planning system, and allowing more dual-occupancy homes across Canberra’s suburbs”.
Mr Maclean said the government should also provide additional funding to the ACT Planning and Land Authority to accelerate planning work for Molonglo Commercial Centre, the Kingston Arts Precinct, Yarralumla Brickworks, Eastlake and “other projects necessary to provide for our growing city”.
YWCA Canberra
YWCA Canberra provides services to over 1000 women and families in the ACT including domestic violence support, housing for vulnerable women and families, and a food bank.
YWCA Canberra Head Of Policy Leah Dwyer said housing affordability and implementing the recommendations of the Listen. Take action to prevent, believe and heal report into ACT’s responses to sexual assault and violence were her top priorities for the upcoming budget.
“The affordability and availability of housing in Canberra is an immense pressure that is felt across the city,” Ms Dwyer said.
“This pressure is felt throughout the housing system as rents become more unaffordable pushing a broader cohort of people and households to access government and community sector housing and support services.
“There is an urgent need to address the undersupply of affordable and supported housing and to bring forward planned investment to lift supply.”
Ms Dwyer said YWCA Canberra’s budget submission called for the ACT Government to find “innovative” ways to increase housing supply by “exploring what levers can be made available to lift the supply of homes rented through the land tax exemption scheme”.
“This might include a full land rates exemption to landlords who lease properties under the scheme at substantially more affordable rental brackets than the current 75 per cent of market rent,” she said.
Ms Dwyer said YWCA Canberra was a member of the Community Housing Industry Association (CHIA) and said they were calling on the ACT Government to set an annual target for the release of sites to enable the development of 200 community housing dwellings per year from the 2022-23 financial year onwards.
“These sites should permit a mixture of housing types to accommodate the growing number of family households who are struggling to compete in the private market,” she said.
Ms Dwyer wants to see the recommendations of the Listen. Take action to prevent, believe and heal report implemented; and welcomed legislative changes by the ACT Government including the criminalisation of stealthing and the move to an affirmative consent model.
“Law reform should not exist in a vacuum however,” Ms Dwyer said.
“The Listen. Take action to prevent, believe and heal report outlines recommendations that can prevent sexual violence, improve justice outcomes for survivors and improve sexual wellbeing more broadly.
“We will be looking at how the government will deliver on its promise to “design, implement and fund a long-term 10-year strategy for the prevention of sexual violence” and what this will look like in detail.
Canberra Business Chamber
The Canberra Business Chamber is the peak body for businesses in the ACT territory.
Business Chamber CEO Graham Catt said Canberra has 31,500 private businesses, employing 150,00 people amounting to almost 64 per cent of jobs in the city.
Mr Catt said 97 per cent of those businesses are small or family owned employing fewer than 20 people.
He said measures to address the skills and labour crisis and to encourage businesses to stay in Canberra were his top budget priorities.
“Our members are facing enormous pressures and need to recruit and retain local workers, but the reality is they’re running out of options,” he said.
“We have urged the ACT government to work with the business community and the education and training sectors to develop a long-term skills and workforce plan to ensure that the ACT produces sufficient skilled workers for the ‘new normal’ of the post-Covid era.”
Mr Catt said the the government needed to encourage new enterprises to start, stay and invest in Canberra.
“We consistently hear from members about a lack of understanding of business needs by government officials, and often disjointed and contradictory approaches from different areas of the ACT government, he said.
“This acts as a disincentive to business growth, deters entrepreneurs and takes up time that could be better spent operating and growing an enterprise.”
Mr Catt said the ACT Government should recruit public service candidates with a business or business-enabling background.
“This skill set can provide a unique perspective and balance to those from an enforcement background, who can often take a punitive and highly-rules based approach to interaction with businesses,” he said.
Mr Catt said while there was entrepreneurial spirit in the territory, this didn’t always translate to great results.
“ABS data shows that the ACT consistently has the among the highest levels of business formation, but also unfortunately has the highest levels of business failure of any jurisdiction,” he said.
“The past two years have been challenging, and even those businesses who have successfully grown their operations are now dealing with a difficult and uncertain environment.”
They face inflation, skills and workforce shortages, supply chain pressures, geopolitical unrest, public health requirements and ongoing restrictions on the movement of people and materials.
Advocacy for Inclusion
Advocacy for Inclusion is the peak consumer voice for people with disability on the ACT and is led primarily by people with disabilities.
Advocacy for Inclusion CEO Craig Wallace would like to see the budget include support for disabled students in ACT Schools, the implementation of the Healthy Prisons review recommendations and proper monitoring of people with disabilities in closed settings.
“Poor schooling sets people with disability up to fail,” Mr Wallace said.
“We have too many students with disability locked out of mainstream schooling in Canberra and schools are not responding well to the needs of students with disability.”
Mr Wallace said disabled people were overrepresented in the ACT Prison system and said work needed to be done to break cycles of offending and incarceration.
“ We need work on universal design in ACT correctional facilities so detainees can access rehabilitation and other programs in the prison,” he said.
“ We need timely access to functional assessments so that detainees with a disability can be identified and provided with supports, rehabilitation and treatment.”
Mr Wallace said too many disabled people were living in “closed settings, such as forensic mental health centres, aged care facilities, locked psychiatric wards, closed community care facilities, segregated educational spaces and segregated rehabilitation facilities.
“We know that these people are vulnerable to abuse and neglect,” he said. “We need to ensure that there are bodies to monitor their circumstances and meet our obligations under the Optional Protocol to the United Nations Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment.”
Mr Wallace said adequate resourcing of the ACT Disability Strategy and the disability health strategy was necessary for the improvement and accessibility of systems that aim to support people with disabilities.
“People with disabilities have told the government about many problems in the health system and we need proper responses especially in the pandemic,” he said.
“Support for people with disability in the pandemic also needs to be continued and improved.
“The strategy also needs to do work on affordable and accessible housing – people with disabilities are often in low incomes and need accessible housing and are at risk of homelessness in Canberra’s tough housing market.”
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