Amid a rental crisis across the state,a team at SGS Economics and Planning has suggested setting upmatch a younger person who needs somewhere to live with an older person or couple in possession of a spare room.
Housing affordability and cost of living are major issues in Sydney.Sam Mooy
Perrottet will tell a summit held by think-tank Committee for Sydney on Monday that the idea has merit because it would give young people another affordable housing option,and reduce the loneliness that some older people experience.
However,the premier will call on the federal government to ensure that older people who want to put empty rooms to better use are not penalised by the tax office.
“Some provision already exists in the income test for age pensions allowing the income from board,and some level of tax offsets are also available for seniors earning additional income,” he will say.
“With this in mind,I’d like the federal government to take a look at whether the current tax rules are fit for purpose for this type of arrangement.”
NSW Premier Dominic Perrottet will speak at a Committee for Sydney summit on Monday.Louise Kennerley
His speech to the Sydney Summit,which is supported by theHerald, comes as in December found that 85 per cent of Sydneysiders surveyed were concerned about cost of living,while 40 per cent were “very concerned”. The survey found a link between cost-of-living pressure and loneliness.
The poll also found consistent support for building more homes and apartments to try to combat the high cost of housing.
Seven weeks out from the state election,Perrottet will highlight the need for governments to be willing to take on the “pain of planning and building for beyond the next election” to avoid Sydney stalling and residents going backwards.
He will point to the state Coalition government’s commitment over several election cycles to building Sydney’s emerging metro rail network and the 33-kilometre WestConnex motorway project. Part of the final stage of WestConnex opened last month.
“You can only get these projects built if your focus is not the next election,but the next generation,” he will say. “If we only focused on the short term,Sydney would have no Harbour Bridge.”
He will cite the light rail line along George Street in the CBD as an example of a challenging project,the benefits of which were hard to see during construction,but which later became clear.
“The light rail hasn’t just given people a reliable public transport option to hop on and hop off all the way down to Randwick,” he will say. “It has stitched together the two halves of our CBD in a new way,and injected life and civic pride into the heart of our city.”
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