The ACT Greens will kick off the 2020 election campaign with a clear view to 'Building a Better Normal' out of the COVID 19 crisis.
Today ACT Greens leader Shane Rattenbury outlined the Party's vision for a "better normal", beginning with a comprehensive $450 million 'Home for All' package over the next four years to end homelessness and improve housing affordability in the ACT.
"We're in an extraordinary historical moment. We started the year choking on bushfire smoke as the climate crisis made itself felt. We survived an incredible hailstorm. Then COVID-19 hit - the most rapid global change any of us have witnessed in our lifetime," ACT Greens leader Shane Rattenbury said today.
"What the COVID crisis has shown is that, where there is political will, we can act boldly and decisively on the issues that matter most to our community.
"We must treat the climate crisis, the housing crisis and the jobs crisis with the same boldness and decisiveness as we have the COVID-19 crisis.
"Now is our chance to 'build a better normal' by ensuring everyone has a home, by greening our suburbs, acting on climate change, and providing meaningful, secure but flexible work."
The Greens have a plan to address the housing crisis, the climate crisis and the economic crisis. Our plan to Build a Better Normal focuses on :
- A Home for All
- Investing in our neighbourhoods
- Jobs for our community
- Real climate action.
In what would mark the largest ever investment in affordable housing in the ACT, the Greens' comprehensive housing package to address our housing crisis, ensure everyone has a home and end homelessness in the ACT for good - a first for any Australian state or territory.
Highlights in the Greens' comprehensive housing plan include:
- A $200 million investment to create 600 new affordable climate-ready rental properties for those in need
- A $200 million investment to create 400 new climate-ready social housing properties
- An immediate funding boost of 20% to Canberra's underfunded specialist homelessness services ($21.4 million over four years)
- $8.5 million to deliver MyHome in Curtin, providing long term supported housing for 20 people with enduring mental health issues
- $9 million to deliver new beds in Canberra's homelessness services and to embed specialist workers (i.e. mental health, disability, etc.) in existing homelessness services to keep more Canberrans out of homelessness for good
- $8 million to deliver another 20 homes at Common Ground in Gungahlin
- $300k to commission initial work on Aboriginal controlled Indigenous community housing organisation.
"We can be proud of what we've achieved here in Canberra by bringing the voices of the community into the Legislative Assembly and pulling the Labor and Liberal parties towards better outcomes. But there is so much more to do, and the old parties won't do it unless we're there to drag them out of their old ways of thinking.
"Now is the opportunity to make these changes, and the Greens are ready to take on these challenges."
