Page 1039 - Week 04 - Thursday, 1 April 1993
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MR LAMONT (11.18): Madam Speaker, as indicated by Mr Connolly, we will be opposing this reference, and we should continue to do so not only for the reasons outlined by Ms Szuty and Mr Moore but also where such an inquiry is predicated on a desire to change fundamentally the face of Canberra. A number of questions have been put from time to time by Mr Cornwell to alter the way in which public housing is operated and distributed throughout the ACT. One of the things that have allowed the ACT, and Canberra in particular, to be developed in the way it has is the policies adopted by successive governments on the operation and location of public housing.
One of the matters we need to keep a close eye on as far as the Housing Trust is concerned is the way in which those properties Ms Szuty has outlined as needing redevelopment are redeveloped. To date, this Assembly has shown a great willingness to take on that issue. The Planning, Development and Infrastructure Committee of the Assembly is required to review all variations to the Territory Plan and it has also taken on that issue. I believe that that single issue is being adequately dealt with by this Assembly and by an existing committee of the Assembly. I believe that the basis of this reference is a witch-hunt; that is what is behind putting this reference to the Assembly.
Ms Szuty tabled a document which shows the significant events in the history of the Housing Trust and its forerunners since Canberra was established. In concluding my very brief address, I seek leave of the Assembly to have that timeline incorporated into Hansard.
Leave granted.
Document incorporated at Appendix 1.
MR KAINE (Leader of the Opposition) (11.21): Madam Speaker, I want to speak briefly in support of Mr Cornwell's motion. I think it should be made clear that there is no contention here of malfeasance or anything of that nature in the Housing Trust. It is simply a question that this organisation has become a large operator, in anybody's terms. There are clearly problems, perhaps merely from the volume of business they conduct. There are some unsatisfactory aspects of that, and Mr Cornwell has run through them in some detail. Perhaps it is time for the Government to look at the way this operation functions. In my view, that would begin with a review of the philosophy behind the Housing Trust. Why do we have the Housing Trust? What is the nature of its functions? How does it operate? How efficient is it? Does it satisfy all of the criteria that should be applied to an operation of this kind?
I do not intend specifically to traverse the material Mr Cornwell put before the Assembly, but the sort of question that comes to my mind, not as a politician but simply as somebody who lives in Canberra, is that we have more publicly owned housing here than is the case anywhere else - I think it is something of the order of 12,000 residential units - and we have nearly 8,000 applicants on the waiting list. So one can say that close to 20 per cent of the householders in Canberra either are living in Housing Trust houses or wish to do so. That is way above the percentage of the population that lives in or has applied to live in Housing Trust houses anywhere else in Australia.
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