Page 4458 - Week 15 - Thursday, 22 November 1990
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There are some very good humanitarian arguments to allow those people to access home ownership; but, equally, as Mr Moore observes, if we cannot cross-subsidise the rebated tenants from some other area of rental income, we may have capital injection demands on the trust to keep the waiting list down. It is a very vexed issue, and I am sure that members of the Assembly will assist the Government when it finally comes to some decision on how we go about this issue. Again, there is other pressure in the community for us to review and upgrade large-scale public housing, such as we have taken on in large measure at Melba. That is another prospect facing the Government.
In future, all aged persons units and other unit-type structures that the trust builds or acquires will be strata titled or unit titled, for ease of dealing for the trust when it wants to leave an area because it no longer suits the circumstances - say, of those aged tenants, because of traffic or because other circumstances have changed. A new approach is being developed by the trust, and I am encouraged by comments across the floor that suggest that there will be a useful contribution and hopefully a maintenance of a level of bipartisan support on this issue.
Mr Speaker, I am sorry, but I advised the house that the demolition at Melba would be completed at the end of the year. It will be completed by the end of the current financial year, but all tenants will be out by 31 December. To summarise, the place will be tenantless from 31 December, and demolition to complete stage 3 will be finished by the end of the financial year.
MRS GRASSBY (11.00): I rise again on another subject which is similar to what Mr Moore spoke about. In November 1990 Mr Collaery put out the report on ownership and share equity, but the Opposition is worried whether he has taken into account the following example. Somebody may have lived in a house in Yarralumla for many, many years and may now be paying 85 per cent of the market rent. If that person decides that he or she really does not want to move and have a house at the coast, and decides to buy a 10 or 20 per cent share in this house, so that it no longer becomes available to the Housing Trust, will that then be counted as part of the Housing Trust stock?
Therefore, will you then be saying to the Commonwealth housing loan trust, the CHA, "We own a 70 per cent or 80 per cent share of that house", whereas the tenant will be paying for most of the upkeep of it? Will this be counted? Will this take up the money of the Housing Trust? If so, I think this is rather serious, and we should be looking at it at this stage.
I agree with Mr Moore: I think it is geared to the people who can afford it. I think the Housing Trust should not be gearing itself to selling shares or allowing people to buy Housing Trust houses when they can afford to borrow from a private bank or building society. Will the Housing Trust have a section which can counsel people about this?
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