Page 1878 - Week 09 - Thursday, 19 October 1989
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welcome one. However, I do caution - and I am sure the Housing Trust is fully cognisant of this - that decisions regarding these matters must be made with full consultation and participation by all the tenants concerned.
The housing needs of the young in our community have received considerable attention in the media in recent times. Let us not leap onto any band wagon here, but let us consider the special needs for crisis care and for medium- and long-term supported and unsupported accommodation in the most appropriate fashion. There are too many youngsters in exit crisis, as we call it in our city; young people who, without our help, will not reach their full potential as fulfilled, contributing adults in our city. They are part of our future and it is up to the whole Assembly, as caring legislators, to consider not only the initiatives brought forward by this Minister but also other initiatives brought forward by her colleagues as ways of providing support and ensuring that their education and employment opportunities are not squandered due to inadequate or even non-existent housing. In that respect the Rally welcomes some of the accommodation policies that have direct conjunction with educational institutions, particularly a group housing project which is proceeding in Narrabundah adjacent to Narrabundah College, for example.
The proposed singles share accommodation scheme and the supported accommodation assistance program are welcome first steps in this progress. But let us be under no illusions, they are first steps only. Our community is going to have to think long and hard about the support that is or is not provided to families and to youth and to those who, with inadequate resources, attempt to support them. Those matters are probably outside the province of the housing review, but I would suggest that when budgeting becomes closer to our minds, when we really have full control over our forward expenditures, unlike this recent budget, we will be able to look in a more global and holistic context to both funding and healing in these areas.
On the subject of the Commonwealth-State housing agreement, we are pleased to see that the ACT has achieved equal status in housing negotiations. It is certainly a change from the situation that applied before self-government when the Federal Labor Government, unlike the States and the Northern Territory, did not apply its full $58m from the Grants Commission to housing in former years.
We expect that there will be welcome initiatives coming forward out of a number of the aspects mentioned by my colleagues in their speeches here, particularly in aged accommodation. This clearly is of interest to all members of the Assembly and we expect that the success of housing for the aged will very much depend upon the equity with which it is developed and the sensitivity with which it is introduced.
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