Northern Territory News
Northern Territory renters pay for failure
Ordinary Territorians are being made to pay for the Henderson Government’s failed land release policies.
Opposition Leader Terry Mills said the June quarter rental data, released today, shows the Territory-wide housing shortage is hitting renters hard.
The figures show that the median rental for a 3-bedroom home in inner-Darwin, which includes suburbs as diverse as Fannie Bay, Stuart Park, Parap, Ludmilla, Woolner, Narrows, Winnellie and Berrimah, is $700 a week – an increase of 9.4% in the June quarter and 16.7% for the year.
Across Darwin and Palmerston, the median rental for a 3-bedroom home is $555 a week, up 4.7% for the quarter and 8.8% for the year.
The figures show rental vacancy rates across the Territory are improbably low – just 0.8% in Darwin and a miserly 0.3% in Alice Springs.
The urgency of our land shortage is illustrated by the fact just 12 residential blocks were sold in Darwin in the June quarter, just 40 in Palmerston and 27 in the rural area.
That falls considerably short of the Government’s own estimates that about 1700 new residences must be built across the Territory every year to meet population growth.
“Put simply, not enough land is being released for residential use across the Northern Territory,” Mr Mills said.
“The Northern Territory has a very high proportion of renters and this Government has turned its back on them.
“They’re being forced to pay exorbitant rentals from a pool of properties much smaller than what is needed.
“The failure to deliver enough land for residential development is just another way the Henderson Government has deceived Territorians.”
2009-08-06
