Page 1042 - Week 04 - Thursday, 1 April 1993
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MADAM SPEAKER: Mr Cornwell?
MR CORNWELL (11.30), in reply: I am waiting for the Minister, Madam Speaker.
MADAM SPEAKER: He has spoken.
Mr Kaine: He obviously did not say much if you do not remember it.
MR CORNWELL: I certainly do not, no. Madam Speaker, I have listened with interest to each of the speakers this morning. Taking it from the top, the figures Ms Szuty produced could be interpreted in the way she wishes to produce them. In turn, I can put my own interpretation on them. I would like to comment very briefly on what I said originally. The fact remains that, in relation to outstanding rents, there is $4.5m in rent arrears for 1991-92, of which $2.4m is in vacated accounts. It does not matter whether the new procedures now allow for rent to be payable in advance, although that is a welcome initiative and I applaud the trust for moving in that direction. We have $2.4m outstanding in Housing Trust accounts from people who have shot through. One has to ask: How did that occur? It is a very substantial amount of money.
Mr Lamont: It is not people who have shot through.
MR CORNWELL: Mr Lamont tells me that it is not people who have shot through. What otherwise do you call vacated accounts, Mr Lamont? There is $2.4 in vacated accounts, of a total amount of $4.5m for the year 1991-92. I do not regard that as a satisfactory arrangement in terms of public funds, and that is what we are looking at. I also seriously challenge the suggestion that the maintenance budget should be based on the stock value of something in excess of $1 billion. This seems to me to be an absurd way of looking at it. It is all very well arguing that you have $1 billion worth of stock, but that stock is realising only $42m in income, of which some $20m is going out in maintenance - something like 48 per cent of the income you are receiving. You cannot work it on the value of your stock. The stock value is not realisable unless you sell it. Therefore, I seriously question the argument put forward by Ms Szuty.
I was, however, enlightened by another comment she made about portability, allowing people to come from interstate to take up ACT Housing Trust properties. I was not aware that portability existed around Australia. I know that there is a requirement that people on the waiting list must have lived in the ACT for six months, but she raised the very interesting point of portability, and I will most certainly be investigating that further, Mr Minister.
Mr Connolly: We can look forward to many more questions on that, I am sure.
MR CORNWELL: You can indeed. We have 45 per cent youth unemployment here. Why would people, as Ms Szuty suggested, be coming to Canberra to look for jobs? We cannot even accommodate the people we have here in terms of jobs.
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