Page 1057 - Week 04 - Thursday, 22 April 2021
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condition issues. This is not simply some abstract statistic; I can guarantee from firsthand experience instances of terrible neglect with people compelled to live in houses that are blatantly uninhabitable.
I stress that this is not the fault of Housing ACT, who are doing their best with the money that they have. Rather, we need to look at the decision-makers who said that $55 million was okay for 2020-21, knowing full well that they were prepared to tolerate or accept some margin of tenants living in unsafe conditions or in dwellings that are clearly not fit for purpose. I cannot remove myself from that conclusion, even after the debate of yesterday, that we are prepared to tolerate and accept this level of people living in houses that are clearly not fit for purpose. I do not think that is good enough.
The government cannot say that they are unaware of these terrible problems. I am sure that the ministers receive a steady flow of pleas for help over unsafe or unhealthy housing conditions. So, to this extent, the performance goals and priorities set for this appropriation are most inadequate. Surely this government needs to have an honest dialogue with its delivery agent—that is, Housing ACT—to determine a realistic funding requirement without passing on its responsibility to its contractor to fix the problem. And, in regard to contractors, we must remember that governments cannot ever outsource their fundamental obligation to govern properly.
Going back to the capital injections for a moment, we can see that the budget has more than doubled compared to the 2019-20 figure. If I understand the metrics for the public housing renewal program correctly, we are going to spend $600 million over the next five years to grow public housing stock by a net 200 dwellings or an average of about 40 per annum. Getting to this additional 200 dwellings involves a multi-pronged strategy: firstly, some 1,000 dwellings will be sold or demolished, and 360 dwellings will be sourced from the indicative land release program. That amounts to an average of 72 dwelling equivalents per year. On top of that another 140 dwellings will be purchased from the private housing market.
Going back to the indicative land release program for a moment, the Housing ACT annual report says that it will be the source of 360 dwellings over the next five years. You would think that, given the chronic shortage of low-cost and public housing, surely the government can do better than this. That will never be because we all know that any increase in the land release program will compromise land sales revenue. We would love to see more dwellings go into this program but it is not going to happen. When you are dealing with a cash-strapped government, it is all about land sales.
In the face of a steadily increasing waiting list for public housing and, as we are seeing at the moment, record pressure on rents and housing prices, we could very well be headed for something of a major train crash. Surely there must be a better way of spending this $600 million to achieve more effective results. Effective solutions are feasible, as proven by the policies we took to the electorate last October and to this chamber earlier in the year in relation to community housing providers; policies that were roundly endorsed by ACTCOSS, ACT Shelter and community housing providers. Our policies were welcomed by the advocacy groups and they remain a valid strategy.
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