Page 1859 - Week 06 - Wednesday, 1 May 1991
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I would suggest to Mr Collaery that he needs to increase substantially the number of new starts a year, and he needs to do so for some time. Happily, after the next election we will have a Labor government that will do that. We should also remember that, in that 150 new starts that have been the average in the last couple of years, a group of people from the now being demolished Melba Flats have taken homes. So, if we adjust for the necessary loss of those Melba units, in fact, we are not providing 150 new homes a year at all; we are perhaps providing about half that, because we have had to make way for those people who have shifted from one to the other.
Mrs Grassby: How about the ones paying enormous rents, Bill, who have been turfed out of houses?
MR WOOD: Mrs Grassby, you had people coming to you, I understand, as we were talking this morning.
Mrs Grassby: Good tenants are being kicked out because they cannot pay the extra rent that has been put up.
Mr Collaery: That is a scandalous comment.
Mrs Grassby: It is not. That is true.
Mr Collaery: Produce the names to me tonight. I challenge you to produce the names.
MR DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order, members! Come on, Mr Collaery and Mrs Grassby.
MR WOOD: It may be that the links that the Labor Party has to the community are much closer and more effective than those that the Government has, and this has led us to discern this undesirable trend before the Government or the statisticians were able to do so.
I want to emphasise the point, and it relates also to the fact that when the Government is selling off housing stock, there is a long lead time. When you say, "We are going to release some more homes. We are going to provide some more money", it takes some considerable amount of time before the decisions you take finish up with a house and someone walking in through the front door. So, it is very important that you take note of these remarks that we are making. It has not yet shown up in statistics maybe, although I think that 0.8 per cent makes it quite clear that it is; but it is the case that we have a crisis in housing looming. It is the case that you need to attend to that as a matter of urgency.
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