15th Jul 2014, 3:55 PM – Senate Motions - Affordable Housing - Increase funding for affordable public housing

The majority voted in favour of a motion introduced by Greens Senator Lee Rhiannon (NSW), which means it was successful.

A motion like this expresses the will of the Senate but it cannot force the Government to take any particular action on its own. However, it may encourage a Government to take particular action.

Motion text

That the Senate—

(a) notes that:

(i) the New South Wales Coalition Government has:

(A) announced the sale of 293 public housing properties at Millers Point and The Rocks in Sydney, with the move expected to displace more than 400 public housing tenants,

(B) made the announcement without notifying the tenants first,

(C) left residents without answers about the disruption to their community and their lives,

(D) failed to undertake a complete assessment of the housing stock in question, and

(E) failed to require provision of any serious amounts of affordable housing units in the state's largest construction site at Barangaroo, adjacent to The Rocks;

(ii) the 1970s Green Bans organised by local residents and the Builders Labourers Federation won protection for the low cost and public housing in the Millers Point and The Rocks area, and

(iii) affordable and appropriate housing is a basic human right and there is already too little social housing stock within Sydney's CBD and surrounds; and

(b) calls on:

(a) the New South Wales Government to cease selling public housing in Millers Point, and

(b) the Federal Government to increase funding for affordable public housing.