National Housing Summit
We are less than three weeks away from our inaugural National Local Government Housing Summit.
This summit will be held at Adelaide Town Hall on Friday 16 August, and the event is an opportunity for us to follow up and expand on discussions we had around affordable housing at our NGA in Canberra earlier this month.
We will also launch new housing research from Equity Economics, and showcase the fantastic and innovative work your councils are doing in this area.
A draft program is now available, which includes a networking reception hosted by Adelaide Lord Mayor Dr Jane Lomax-Smith on 15 August.
Registrations are now open – I hope to see you there!
Energy transition
I was delighted to speak to The Guardian recently about the importance of engaging local government in the planning of renewable energy projects and infrastructure.
Our energy and housing transitions must be carefully managed to ensure communities are supported with housing and infrastructure along the way, with local governments at the centre of this planning.
Importantly, councils have a key role to play in helping deliver on Australia’s emissions reduction and net zero targets, and it’s encouraging around 80 per cent of local governments have already set or are investigating emissions reduction targets.
Energy transition is an important topic for so many of our communities and it’s an honour to represent you on the Energy and Climate Change Ministerial Council.
The Council last met on 19 July and you can read the Communique.
Ministerial councils
A key role for ALGA is to represent the voice of local government on the many Ministerial councils.
In the past month, representatives from the ALGA Board attended several key Ministerial councils, including the Environment Ministers’ Meeting, Building Ministers’ Meeting, Water Ministers’ Meeting and the Ministerial Migration Roundtable.