Page 1038 - Week 04 - Thursday, 1 April 1993
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MR MOORE (11.14): Madam Speaker, in preparing for this matter, Ms Szuty and I discussed it at some length. We agreed that the bulk of our ideas would be presented by Ms Szuty, who has done this in a particularly careful and thorough manner. The suggestion by Mr Cornwell on a number of occasions in this house reflects an ideological difficulty with the way the Housing Trust operates. It seems to me that the difficulty focuses on the difference between public housing and welfare housing. What Mr Cornwell would like to see is the Queensland style of public housing, where about 3 per cent of all housing is basically welfare housing. The historical background of Canberra is such that we have a system of public housing rather than welfare housing. The most significant advantage of that, as I see it, is that people are not marginalised by their need to seek help in terms of welfare housing. There is a range of people who use public housing, and those who can easily afford the full rental wind up assisting the community as a whole to pay for those who are not able to pay full rental because they are in need of some assistance.
I feel very proud to live in a suburb where there is a wide range of public housing, and I would think the vast majority of people in Canberra feel exactly the same way. It is fair to say that Mr Cornwell on a number of occasions has also expressed the point of view that he has no difficulty with housing through a range of suburbs. The difficulty with some of the proposals we have heard for selling off housing, particularly the more valuable housing, almost invariably around the inner city, is that then there is a different distribution of housing as far as the public is concerned, and we wind up with an approach that focuses on welfare housing rather than public housing. It is very important that public housing be distributed as widely as possible throughout the suburbs in Canberra. I think this is the approach the Housing Trust has taken and it is an approach I have always supported and continue to support.
The question of an inquiry taking place was raised by Ms Szuty, who expressed her opposition to an inquiry at this stage. In supporting Ms Szuty, I point out that it is important for us to realise that each of our inquiries is relatively important, and we must be convinced that there is enough evidence to support an inquiry that is based on issues rather than on an ideological stance.
Mr Cornwell has asked a whole series of questions that probe the Housing Trust very thoroughly and has done so in the Estimates Committee. I congratulate him for that because that is the role of an opposition and that is part of the accountability process. An inquiry is also part of the accountability process, but at this stage I believe that we have not had enough information to indicate that there is something drastically wrong or that we have such a major problem that it would require a full inquiry into the Housing Trust. In opposing this motion, I also draw attention to the fact that the issues raised by Mr Cornwell in his series of questions are important issues for the community to consider, but at this stage through the process he has been using and through the Estimates Committee rather than through the process of a specialist inquiry.
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