Melissa Parke (Fremantle, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The issues of housing availability, affordability and access present critical challenges in Australia, and these are issues on which I have spoken a number of times, particularly with respect to tackling homelessness. In the last 12 months I have been pleased to take part in aged care policy consultations in my electorate with my community, and this has reinforced for me the pressing need to ensure that we create appropriate housing for older Australians and for Australians living with disability. These of course are overlapping categories, because as we age we inevitably become less able in a number of ways.

The government's Living Longer, Living Better policy springs from the recognition that Australians are living longer and that the preference of most people is to live active, vibrant lives in their own homes for as long as possible. This government recognises that enabling that to be the case in future will require policy and service reform in a number of areas. One of them is certainly housing. In the last week of August I had the opportunity to attend, with the federal Minister for Housing, Brendan O'Connor, the opening of a new development in my electorate at Cockburn Central. The Living Space development is a five-building, 130-apartment complex built under the Gillard government's social housing initiative at a cost of $39.35 million. The apartments in this development will deliver a range of affordable housing options, including social housing, affordable rental properties and privately owned homes for low- to moderate-income earners, some of which can be purchased through WA government assisted shared equity programs.

It is a credit to the development proponent, the builder and the city of Cockburn that the Living Space project does a lot more than simply create much-needed diverse and affordable housing. The development has a six-star or higher energy rating across all its units, greatly reducing the energy demands of this housing complex and also the cost to the residents. The complex has been designed with accessibility in mind and has special features that provide improved access for those with restricted mobility as well as being easily adaptable for universal access in future. What's more, the Living Space development is a short distance to the Cockburn central train station, the new Cockburn GP superclinic and the Gateway shopping centre, and it is 15 minutes by train from the Perth CBD. It therefore represents the kind of transport-oriented development we need to see a lot more of if our cities are to operate on a more sustainable basis. This development forms only one part of the $101 million that the Labor government has invested in the Fremantle electorate to help build around 320 new homes and to repair and maintain a further 1,580 existing homes.

It was late last year that the first major project of this kind in my electorate reached completion, namely the $22.8 million Fort Knox Match development within the heritage warehouse precinct in the heart of Fremantle. That project delivered 58 one-bedroom units, 12 of which are class C adaptable, which means they are easily modified for tenants with a disability. They make up half of the 24 units, which will be available as social housing for the region's most vulnerable people including older Australians and people with a disability.

I am proud to be part of a Labor government that has made significant strides in addressing housing affordability and in reducing homelessness in this country. This Labor government has invested a record $20 billion in programs targeted at addressing these issues since coming to office—programs like the National Rental Affordability Scheme, which, through partnership with states and territories, has delivered an increase in the supply of new affordable rental dwellings across Australia. Under the scheme, approved properties are rented out to eligible low-to-moderate income tenants at 20 per cent or more below the market rate. In Western Australia alone the scheme is expected to deliver an additional 5,000 affordable rental homes.

The creation of adequate, affordable, accessible, sustainable and well located housing is an absolutely critical challenge in Australia and it is one that must be guided by government at the local, state and federal level. There are special imperatives and constraints that apply when it comes to providing social housing, universally accessible housing and transport oriented development. These imperatives will cause the underprovision of such housing if its provision is left to the market.

On either edge of my electorate, east and west, in the City of Cockburn and in the City of Fremantle, both the Living Space and the Match developments have demonstrated how carefully targeted government investment can create much needed housing that would never be provided by the market left to its own devices. Both these projects are transport oriented developments, both these projects involve high-quality energy efficiency and environmental design, both these projects create social and affordable housing and housing that caters for older Australians and Australians with a disability. To me they represent not only brilliant new housing but brilliant examples of the way forward when it comes to Australia's future housing needs.