{"id":38167,"date":"2026-03-30T05:44:12","date_gmt":"2026-03-29T18:44:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/?p=38167"},"modified":"2026-03-30T05:44:12","modified_gmt":"2026-03-29T18:44:12","slug":"new-documents-reveal-202-million-paid-in-housing-debt-interest-while-waitlists-grow-and-crisis-deepens","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/2026\/03\/30\/new-documents-reveal-202-million-paid-in-housing-debt-interest-while-waitlists-grow-and-crisis-deepens\/","title":{"rendered":"New documents reveal $202 million paid in housing debt interest while waitlists grow and crisis deepens"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Yesterday, documents released by the ACT Government exposed the true cost of Canberra\u2019s historic housing debt, and it\u2019s staggering. Since the year 2000, nearly $202 million in interest payments have been paid on the loan.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Leader of the ACT Greens and Greens Spokesperson for Housing, Shane Rattenbury, said the figures lay bare a system that is actively holding back progress on public housing, and the Federal Government is enabling it.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThis isn\u2019t just bad debt, it\u2019s a complete failure of priorities. The territory has effectively paid back almost the entire original debt in interest alone, without that money building a single new home for people who need it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAt a time when we are in a worsening housing crisis, governments should be working together to build more public housing. This historic debt is stymieing that progress.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhile the Federal Government is giving more money to public housing with one hand, they are taking it back with the other via this debt mechanism.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cLet\u2019s be clear: this isn\u2019t a loan from a bank like Commonwealth Bank or ANZ. This is the Federal Government charging the ACT for historic investment in housing, and it\u2019s a drop in the ocean compared to the scale of the federal budget.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cEvery dollar spent servicing this debt is a dollar that could have gone into building homes, reducing waiting lists, and supporting people doing it tough.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cInstead, it\u2019s disappearing into a financial black hole while thousands of Canberrans are locked out of secure housing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe Federal Government needs to wipe this debt and stop pretending this is a normal arrangement. If we are serious about tackling the housing crisis, we cannot keep punishing the very governments tasked with the job of fixing it<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Yesterday, documents released by the ACT Government exposed the true cost of Canberra\u2019s historic housing debt, and it\u2019s staggering. Since the year 2000, nearly $202 million in interest payments have been paid on the loan. Leader of the ACT Greens and Greens Spokesperson for Housing, Shane Rattenbury, said the figures lay bare a system that is … Continue reading “New documents reveal $202 million paid in housing debt interest while waitlists grow and crisis deepens”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-38167","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-aussie"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38167","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=38167"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38167\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":38168,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38167\/revisions\/38168"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38167"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=38167"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38167"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}