Page 1187 - Week 05 - Wednesday, 24 June 1992
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Chifley Government initiative in 1945 - a truly remarkable landmark in public policy in Australia that has endured so long. It has gone through many changes during that period, but the cornerstone remains the same. It has been a process by which the Commonwealth commits itself to public housing and so commits the States to public housing, and that important cornerstone of housing policy in Australia should, in the view of the Government, be retained.
I am pleased to advise the Assembly that the ACT, in the last 12 months, really has taken the lead in the debate on this issue in strongly urging that that Commonwealth-State joint involvement be retained. We have always opposed moves to transfer to a financial assistance grant model of Commonwealth housing funding. We have always opposed moves to transfer to a general rent assistance special needs approach to housing funding from the Commonwealth, and have stressed that it is in the interests not only of the Territory but also of all other States and Territories in Australia that we retain that joint involvement under the auspices of the Commonwealth-State Housing Agreement. I am pleased to table for the information of members a letter that I wrote to the Deputy Prime Minister, Mr Howe, on 5 June strongly stating the ACT's commitment to this, and indicating as well the support of the whole Government, through the Chief Minister, for that. So there is a very strong commitment by the ACT to that joint involvement in housing.
It is a concern, Madam Speaker, that some of the longstanding bipartisanship on public housing matters seems to be under challenge in recent weeks in this Assembly. We have heard Liberal speakers, originally Mr De Domenico and Mr Westende, making remarks about flogging off public housing. I thought that Mr Cornwell had nailed them and had brought the Liberal Party back to its senses. But no, in recent weeks we have heard Mr Cornwell as well enthusing about his desire to flog off public housing. In comments made only the other week he was saying that we should be looking at cheap public housing out on the fringes of Canberra. He was terribly critical of our purchase of a house for supported accommodation at a cost of $190,000. He said that we should buy two cheap houses for that.
Mr De Domenico: With a 10-metre swimming pool, air-conditioning and en suites.
MR CONNOLLY: Madam Speaker, I have looked through this week's Realtor and I would challenge any Liberal to find me two $85,000 houses; they are just not there. These people are out of touch. I got the interjection about the swimming pool. Madam Speaker, at that house, which was an extraordinarily good purchase for its purpose, which is supported accommodation, is a rather old, rather dilapidated, small above-ground swimming pool which the group running the house maintains out of their own funds. Yet we had this sort of fantasy from the Opposition, trying to whip up hysteria out there.
Mrs Grassby: Like it had a jacuzzi and everything.
MR CONNOLLY: Jacuzzis, Mrs Grassby says. As if we were building Shangri-las for people in receipt of government assistance. That really is divisive. It is an attack on public housing and it is an attack on welfare housing; and it is not worthy of the Liberal Party.
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