Advocacy Publications

Everyone needs a home. A home where they feel safe, a home that’s secure, and a home they can afford. Yet for a growing number of Canberrans, an affordable home is beyond reach. Our housing system is broken, and housing stress and homelessness is harming individuals, families and the wider community. Business-as-usual, with a reliance […]

This bulletin provides a summary of ACTCOSS’s analysis of and response to the 2024-25 ACT Budget, announced on 25 June 2024. It highlights key announcements relevant to community service organisations and the Canberrans they support. It also includes a list of Budget measures requiring further clarification from the ACT Government, as well as highlighting gaps […]

The Government’s Standing Committee on Health and Community Well-being held this Inquiry to obtain evidence on the factors that influence the timing, number and spacing of children in ACT families. It was designed to shed light on why the ACT has the lowest Total Fertility Rate in Australia and to identify policies that could help […]

In this joint submission, ACTCOSS has joined with nine other organisations to call on the ACT Government to develop a comprehensive and ambitious Domestic, Family and Sexual Violence Strategy in the ACT. The ACT currently has no such strategy, and the draft Strategy that has been proposed is a welcome step, but falls short of […]

The ICRC Electricity Prices Investigation 2024-27 draft report and proposed price direction was released in February 2024. The regulated standing offer price is expected to increase by 17% (with low confidence in the calculated estimate), mostly due to price volatility caused by the ACT Large Scale Feed-in Tariff (LFiT) scheme. ACTCOSS provided a submission highlighting […]

This submission to the 2024-25 ACT Budget process comes at a time when the ACT faces a number of critical challenges. While the ACT has the highest average weekly earnings in Australia, when we look beyond the average we see that the cost of living in Canberra means many households cannot afford the fundamentals of […]

ACTCOSS welcomed the opportunity to work collaboratively and in partnership with ACT Government colleagues in the development of the 2023 Listening Report. The joint analysis ensured a more comprehensive process to identify both challenges and opportunities for meeting the ambition of the Government’s reform agenda set out in the Commissioning Roadmap. ACTCOSS recognised the constraints […]

ACTCOSS’ submission into the Inquiry into Loneliness and Social Isolation in the ACT outlined key concerns related to the substantial impact that poverty has on loneliness and social isolation. ACTCOSS advocates that policy change needs to occur to reduce poverty and create understanding and supported pathways out of poverty to assist and support those groups […]

Given the vital role of education in fostering social and economic inclusion and equity, ACTCOSS are deeply concerned about the stark and growing disparities that characterise the education system in the ACT. Our education system is one of the most inequitable in Australia, with the ACT having the worst relationship between socio-economic status and performance […]

ACTCOSS provided a submission to the Australian Energy Regulator (AER) review of the exemptions framework for embedded networks (ENs). We highlighted that energy must be regarded as an essential service. For exemptions to be granted, developers and/or Owners Corporations (OC) should have to demonstrate that their proposed EN will provide material benefit to consumers. The […]