Page 239 - Week 03 - Tuesday, 30 May 1989
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The Minister has stated that her department is looking at innovative and creative ways of resolving the many problems in the housing policy review. The Rally acknowledges that a lot of that is icing on a cake which has gone soft in the centre because of the policies of the Federal Labor Government. On that score the Rally joins with Mr Stefaniak in expressing concern at the apparent disinterest of the current Federal Treasurer, who goes abroad at this time of crisis in the mortgage belt throughout Australia.
The Rally endorses the abolition of stamp duty in the same categories as have been generally proposed on this floor. The Rally believes an adequate supply of serviced land via the land sales division of the ACT Administration is a necessity but also has to be correlated with measures in the public rental market where the Rally is interested in ensuring that tenants are means tested with some regularity. The Rally understands that public housing has been means tested only since 1974.
Market rates for home loans should be paid by those who can afford them. As approximately 90 per cent of new applicants receive social security benefits, obviously in the initial years we are subsidising, either through Federal indirect subsidy or out of our budget, much of that public housing at a high rate. The Rally waits with interest to hear the Minister's response to the question without notice asked earlier as to the standard and efficacy of means testing for government housing tenants. If more of that housing can be freed up for those who are clearly in priority need, that obviously is an aspect of the overall decision on whether we are to increase or decrease public housing stocks.
The Rally will support the ACT Housing Trust in maintaining and increasing public housing rental stock, subject to those qualifications that we mentioned earlier. The Rally wishes to see the trust conduct regular rent reviews to ensure that market rents are paid by those who can afford them, and the Rally would of course support a tenant purchase option scheme that would not only serve to increase the home interest of the parties paying rent but also preserve public housing stocks on a planned basis throughout the various suburbs and sections of Canberra.
The Rally believes very strongly that before further public housing is built, amended, or reconstructed there should be a mechanism established for the input of tenants, the community and particularly residents to the design, siting and management of public housing in the ACT. The Rally supports innovative measures, such as urban infill and small scale residential redevelopment, subject of course to the well-known and well-stated environmental and residential amenity issues. The right of the aged to live where they have lived is obviously recognised by all in this house, but that right must not transcend the historic and heritage areas of the Territory and, similarly, environmental and other concerns.
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