Nicolette Boele (Bradfield, Independent) Share this | Hansard source

Wherever you look in my community of Bradfield, across the Ku-ring-gai and Willoughby local government areas, there are new apartments and other homes being built. At the same time, when I speak to people, they raise the same concern. They're struggling to afford to live in Bradfield, or, if they can afford it, it's their children or their grandchildren who can't. How can this be true when so many new housing developments claim to be offering affordable housing?

Part of the problem is that there is no consistent definition of the 'affordable' part of affordable housing. It's defined differently by almost everyone and even in ways that undermine the ordinary meaning of affordable. Some have affordability as 30 per cent of a household's gross income, and anything higher is considered as housing stress. But the truth is, for a majority of young people starting their careers in nursing, teaching or in retail on the North Shore, there isn't anything to rent for that amount. I recently spoke with a registered nurse who's just a few years out of university, and she managed to find a share house in Artarmon for just on 50 per cent of her income. That's not sustainable for anyone. Others have affordability defined as a 20 per cent discount on the market rent. But, if market rent is exceptionally high as it is across my area and Bradfield, that 20 per cent reduction isn't going to help much. The result is that most of the time affordable doesn't mean affordable at all, and it inevitably forces people to move away from their families, from their workplaces and from their support networks.

Bradfield has a huge unmet need for genuinely affordable housing. Data is patchy, but recent estimates put it at around 3,500 dwellings. That's five times more than the current social and affordable housing stock in the area. To get there, we need to build more homes, and Bradfield's making some progress in that direction, but new supply isn't enough on its own. Governments have to ensure that it's accessible for the people who need it most. Without clear and meaningful standards around affordability, we won't have homes built that are genuinely affordable. We'll just continue to see more and more young families priced out of the places that they grew up in, and we'll see more essential workers forced to move away and commute longer distances to the schools, hospitals and aged-care facilities that they keep operational.

Earlier this month, I launched a campaign that called for a clear national definition for 'affordable housing' so funding, planning and construction are all working towards the same goal. With your support, we can push the government to set a consistent definition so we can hold them accountable for the funds that they commit in order to deliver the homes that people can actually afford.

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