Page 1190 - Week 05 - Wednesday, 24 June 1992
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that the joint involvement of the Commonwealth and the States and the commitment to public housing that is contained in the Commonwealth-State Housing Agreement is the best way to achieve social justice through progressive and enlightened public housing policies.
MR HUMPHRIES (3.27): I indicate, first of all, that Mr Connolly, as, unfortunately, is his wont, has misquoted my colleagues behind me.
Mr De Domenico: It is not unusual, though.
MR HUMPHRIES: It is not unusual; but I think I might, perhaps vainly, put on the record one more time what the Liberal Party has actually said about the selling off of housing stock. What we have said, quite clearly, is that we intend to sell off surplus stock occupied by non-rebatable tenants. That is a very great difference from what Mr Connolly has said. It indicates very clearly that we do not see public housing in the same way that this Government does, and apparently Mr Moore does, namely, as an end in itself. Rather, we see it as a means to an end; as a way of delivering housing to those people who are in need of such housing, and also as a way of delivering a mix of housing which is appropriate for the Territory and which meets the basic need, I think, of all or most Australians to own their own homes. That has to be, in my opinion, Madam Speaker, the bottom line of any housing policy adopted by any government - to facilitate the maximum number of individuals having their own homes by whatever means are available to the government to do so.
The Minister for Housing engaged in a long diatribe about the rednecks on this side of the chamber, and how he really felt that we had to be, sort of, knocked into line; that we posed this great threat to the Commonwealth-State Housing Agreement. Let me make it quite clear, Madam Speaker, that the threat to the Commonwealth-State Housing Agreement does not come from this side of the chamber. The threat to the Commonwealth-State Housing Agreement comes at present from the present Federal Labor Government. I assume, Madam Speaker, that Mr Connolly was not lying in bed one night and suddenly thought, "Hey, I will write a letter to Mr Howe, the Federal Housing Minister, and tell him that we really think that the Commonwealth-State Housing Agreement is a wonderful idea". Mr Connolly's letter of 5 June was predicated on the threat to the Commonwealth-State Housing Agreement which his own ministerial colleague, whom he was photographed happily shaking hands with yesterday, happens to pose to that agreement. That is where the threat comes from.
I might say, Madam Speaker, to put it perfectly plainly on the record, that, unlike perhaps the Federal Labor Government, this party, the ACT Liberal Party - I think I speak to some extent also for even the Federal Liberal Party - does see the value in continuing Commonwealth-State agreements sustaining public housing across this country. That is an essential element. The last few words of the Minister's own speech, I think, reflected that sentiment. It is an essential element in maintaining high-quality, coordinated public housing in this country. It has to be sustained.
I am not saying, by any stretch of the imagination, that there is not scope for improvement in that arrangement. I think any of us would see that there is room for changes in policy from time to time which ought to address emerging needs in the Australian housing market. Obviously, things like a recession, changing patterns of land use, and the way in which energy and so on are consumed by
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