Australia Planning Institute Responds To Housing Study

Planning Institute of Australia president Sue Holliday says that opening more land for development will not stop the poverty cycle or decrease the cost of housing.

" 'There's no point releasing more and more land on the fringe of our cities, isolating the poorer members of our community from jobs, from transport and putting them in to more difficult environmental situations,' she said."

The recently released 2006 Demographia International Housing Affordability Survey found that Australian cities are on average, the most expensive of the 100 major urban areas of the six nations surveyed. The nations covered within this year’s survey are Australia, New Zealand, Canada, the United States, Ireland and the United Kingdom. The Survey found that limiting land supply by local and State Governments is the major cause of the housing affordability crisis.

Holliday says federal "...taxation policies should reward investment in affordable housing within or close to cities. Financial structures and financial incentives to encourage the private and the public sector to work together to deal with housing affordability."