Alicia Payne (Canberra, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise today to update the House on the Canberra Forum, my deliberative democratic panel, which I'm running with the support of democracyCo, who are generously donating their time to run this Australian first, where 40 randomly selected Canberrans are going to advise me on a topic of their choice. I can report that, since I last updated the House, they have chosen their topic, which is: what can the federal government do to improve affordable housing? It is surely a topic at front of mind for so many Australians at the moment.

I also want to thank my colleagues the Minister for Climate Change and Energy, Chris Bowen, and the Minister for Housing, Julie Collins, who gave their time to address the group, and we had a really great discussion. I again want to thank the participants for the time they have put into this, including last Saturday, where we had a meeting all afternoon and we had a great discussion with the Minister for Housing. Right at this moment we are trying to get through this parliament our Housing Australia Future Fund Bill. It is critically important to get this done so that we can assist Australians with the housing crisis they are currently facing. The Canberra Forum process shows just how important this issue is for Canberrans. They considered a range of topics, including transitions to renewable energy and no-one being left behind, to community voices being heard in parliament, to other topics they were really interested in, but this one came to the top.