Page 1185 - Week 05 - Wednesday, 24 June 1992
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inequity that housing provision is intended to remove. It needs to be remembered, too, that private enterprise owners are not involved in housing provision for the social good. They are in it for private gain. Government should be wary of providing public moneys for schemes unless both means and ends are for the public good.
The Commonwealth-State Housing Agreement, initiated by the Chifley Government in 1945 to provide affordable housing, is the only hope low and middle income earners have of finding secure, affordable and appropriate housing. That housing is public rental housing. I think it is important here to distinguish between public rental housing and welfare housing. There are some who believe that it is only appropriate for us to provide welfare housing at the public expense. The great advantage of having a public housing scheme is that people who are involved in welfare housing, for want of a better term, are not isolated and made in any sense a scapegoat. The other advantage is a financial advantage. That financial advantage is that people who are not in welfare housing but are involved in public housing invariably wind up, in effect, subsidising people who are recipients of welfare housing. That being the case, there is less money coming out of Consolidated Revenue to support those.
ACOSS and other welfare groups around Australia strongly criticise such proposals. There are grave concerns that such proposals would signal the end of public housing in Australia. They state:
... direct construction of public and community housing is the only way that many low income earners can gain access to secure, affordable housing of a decent quality.
The suggestion to do away with direct government spending to build houses and replace it with rental subsidies represents a huge leap of faith in the market. The assumption is that the market delivers a perfect product for the public good. There is widespread concern that the market would not provide an effective supply of low cost accommodation in the areas where people want to live, unless tax incentives were offered to builders. There is also concern that some disadvantaged groups may be denied housing in the private market, while many low income people would lose the security of tenure offered by public rental housing. I think that security of tenure is a very important factor in ensuring that people have a sense of dignity about their lives.
With respect to the ACT, this Federal proposal would destroy the hopes of 5,700 people currently on the ACT Housing Trust waiting list waiting for secure public housing. About 13 per cent of Canberra's housing is publicly owned. It provides a billion dollar capital asset for the entire ACT community. As well, it provides secure tenure for the majority of Canberra's low and moderate income earning home owners. This is the only way that such people can have security of tenure - and the dignity of having security of tenure.
There are currently about 12,500 dwellings managed by the ACT Housing Trust, in addition to those managed under the supported accommodation assistance program, such as Ainslie Village, women's refuges and special needs programs such as halfway houses and so forth. I digress for one moment with reference to Ainslie Village - I have declared before in this house that I have an interest in it as a director and member of the board - to point out that there has been an increase in the numbers of people over the last year and a bit. There has been an increase
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