Today in Parliament, Abigail blasted NSW Labor for celebrating housing innovation while simultaneously ignoring the NCC's minimum accessibility standards - again.
Abigail said:
I take note of the answers given by the Hon. Rose Jackson in relation to this Government's approach to housing and, in particular, the comments about innovation in finding solutions to the current housing crisis. What is not innovative is the continued failure of this Government to sign on to the National Construction Code minimum accessibility silver standard requirements in line with the rest of the nation, except for Western Australia. We have been campaigning on this for a very long time. Just today there was a rally outside Parliament House of people in the Building Better Homes campaign, who have been arguing for a long time for those accessibility standards to be adopted for all new builds across New South Wales. They are really frustrated because, although we talk a lot about building homes, and although I have heard the Minister for Housing talking about how social homes are likely to have the minimum accessibility standard attached, unlike all other States, we are not going to mandate that all new builds in this State are accessible for people with disability and mobility needs. For anyone who wants to grow old in their own home, or for anyone who has a friend wanting to visit them who cannot get up a flight of stairs to get through the front door, the minimum accessibility requirements are really basic.
As I say, the requirements are not a problem in other States and Territories, except New South Wales and Western Australia. Building companies are building accessible homes in the Australian Capital Territory, Queensland and Victoria, but when it comes to New South Wales, apparently it is too expensive for them to do that. That absurdity continues. The longer it continues, the more I think it is purely to do with the Property Council and nothing to do with the cost of housing or any real obstacles to doing what is right. It is an absolute affront to put a person in a wheelchair on one of the front covers of the budget documents and then not do this most basic thing to ensure accessibility for the 1.37 million people in New South Wales with a disability. It is untenable. I do not understand why this Government refuses to do that most basic thing. It cannot talk about innovation when it cannot even do that.