Page 488 - Week 02 - Thursday, 25 February 1993
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .
That is a level of rental arrears which is not unreasonable in an organisation of this nature. The rather dramatic figures - that over half of the tenants are in current arrears - look very bad, I will grant you, Mr Cornwell. Most of those tenants, while technically in arrears, are in arrears for less than two weeks. That has occurred because we have recently had a change in policy in the trust where, instead of charging tenants rent in arrears, we now seek rent in advance. So tenants who for many, many years have been paying their rent at the end of the fortnight are required by a change of policy last year to pay rent in advance. That has meant that a lot of tenants have not fully adjusted and have a sort of two-week standing arrears on their account. We are gradually trying to whittle that down.
If you had a situation where over half the tenants were not paying their rent, I would agree that that was a major problem. As of now, we have over half our tenants in arrears; but, of those, 3,800 - the majority of that arrears group - are in arrears for less than two weeks and that has occurred primarily because we have changed our rental collection policy to get rent in advance rather than rent in arrears. Presumably it is the sort of housekeeping measure which you would favour because it is tightening up somewhat. It will take some time for people to adjust, so it is not really an overly dramatic situation.
Mr Cornwell: Tell me about the big ticket arrears.
MR CONNOLLY: A lot of those big ticket arrears occur because a person has been claiming a rebate which they are not entitled to. When that is adjusted you can suddenly get a large arrears amount which needs to be recovered.
Mr Humphries: When they are caught.
MR CONNOLLY: When they are caught. We could catch more if we had, for our 12,500 tenants, 12,500 inspectors. We would probably need three lots because we would need eight-hour shifts. We would need 36,000 so that we had somebody living in every house, all the time, in order to check whether anyone's eligibility changed from moment to moment, or hour to hour. It would be absurd.
Mr Cornwell: So you are just allowing this to go on, are you?
MR CONNOLLY: No, we do not. We investigate matters. We look at them; we evict. Some years ago a Labor Federal Minister made the unfortunate statement in the media - this was back in the Whitlam Government days - that the ACT housing authorities never evict. As a result of that, virtually everybody stopped paying their rent. We do evict and, indeed, over the recent three-month period some 70 eviction notices have been issued. Most cases do not actually lead to eviction because when the eviction notice is received people do get the message that we are serious and satisfactory arrangements are put in place.
I think the only way that we and other housing authorities will get on top of the arrears problem is through the introduction, which is very imminent, of an arrangement whereby social security recipients can have their public housing rental direct deducted - that is, they will not get the cash which they then have to pass to the trust. They will get their DSS cheque - - -
Mr Cornwell: But this is only voluntary, is it not, Minister?
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .