Page 4968 - Week 16 - Tuesday, 26 November 1991
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housing industry, would realise about three-quarters of a million dollars for the ACT Government in these difficult financial times. Given our fairly extensive public housing stock, there is a good argument for some of that stock in prime areas to be sold off.
Some 3,000 or so housing tenants are paying, effectively, a commercial rent because their incomes enable them to pay that rent. I think one of the most effective ways of achieving real social equity and helping people to better themselves is to make it easy for them to buy their own homes. There are some schemes whereby housing tenants can purchase their homes; but such schemes should be made more readily available, and the ability of people to buy from their housing stock should be extended.
That approach was used particularly effectively by the Thatcher regime in Britain, where a large number of council homes were bought by longstanding tenants. That perhaps is one of the reasons for that lady's very great success over a decade: It gave ordinary people who did not have any real investment something significant of their own, namely, their own home. The dream of every Australian, including I am sure every Canberran, still is to own his or her own home. That is about the most significant purchase most people will make in their lives. I think a lot more can be done in Canberra to encourage some tenants to purchase their own homes.
There are a number of avenues, in this area of the budget, where some savings to government can be made in future years. When people buy their own homes they are responsible for their own maintenance, and maintenance is a very significant item in this part of the budget.
MR JENSEN (10.22): This is an issue I raised with the Minister in the Assembly some time ago and I have also written to the Minister. Members may recall - the Minister no doubt does - the number of questions I raised on this matter during the Estimates Committee hearings. I am referring, of course, to the provision of community facilities in the developing suburbs of Canberra. I refer particularly to the Tuggeranong Valley, where it would appear that there is no forward planning in relation to the provision of these facilities. It seems that, in this budget anyway, the suburb of Calwell is the last place for which proposals have been put forward for future development.
I am referring to the suburbs further south of Calwell, such as Bonython, Gordon, Conder, Banks and Isabella Plains, just to name a few.
Mrs Nolan: There is a house at Isabella Plains.
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