Page 973 - Week 04 - Wednesday, 21 April 2021

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the temptation to sheet this problem home to the contractor, unless there is some systemic management problem there. We must remember it is the role of a responsible government to look after its tenants, and that obligation cannot be buck passed to a contractual matter.

We will have amendments from the minister. I am quite pleased in part with the vibe of some of those amendments, and I commend Ms Berry and her staff for engaging with me on them. I look forward to hearing from the minister and other members on this and getting to the all-important climactic vote at the end of it.

MS BERRY (Ginninderra—Deputy Chief Minister, Minister for Early Childhood Development, Minister for Education and Youth Affairs, Minister for Housing and Suburban Development, Minister for the Prevention of Domestic and Family Violence, Minister for Sport and Recreation and Minister for Women) (3.13): I thank Mr Parton for bringing forward this motion today. I move:

Omit all words after “(1) notes:” and substitute:

“ (a) the importance of all tenants’, public and private, reasonable entitlement to a dwelling that is structurally safe to live in;

(b) a landlord’s obligation to provide dwellings that are free of risks to the health and safety of their residents;

(c) the Government requires its public housing maintenance contractor to comply with rigorous standards for rectification of health and safety risks; and

(d) in 2019-20, Housing ACT reported it had received more than 1100 complaints related to maintenance and property condition issues, amounting to almost 42 percent of all complaints;

(2) notes:

(a) the ACT Government is investing over $1 billion over 10 years to grow and renew public housing to provide more homes and meet the needs of tenants;

(b) the ACT Government invests over $40 million every year to maintain public housing properties;

(c) the ACT Government spent an additional $8.9 million in public housing maintenance and energy efficiency upgrades and to support local jobs through COVID-19; and

(d) all landlords have an ethical and social obligation to ensure tenants are living in safe and health compliant dwellings; and

(3) calls on the ACT Government to:

(a) continue the stocktake of public housing dwellings to determine the condition and future of each dwelling;

(b) reaffirm its commitment that all public housing dwellings meet health and safety standards;

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