Page 157 - Week 01 - Wednesday, 23 February 1994
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statutory rights to purchase housing in five years we have a major danger that we will lose the inner city housing stock. I am not aware, from the extensive hearings by the Estimates Committee on the Housing Trust last year, when the trust was cross-examined in minute detail by Mr Cornwell, that this presents a problem; that the current system is not working to the point where there needs to be a legislative mechanism.
Mr Humphries is saying that we would reserve our right not to sell properties. I am not convinced that that is the case. I believe that there is a danger that this mechanism would lead to a system where we lose that inner city property. That inner city property is a very valuable community asset. We will increasingly be looking at redevelopment of that inner city property. We will do that by means of a consultative mechanism. If we fail to do that by means of a consultative mechanism we will be in deep trouble in this Assembly, so we obviously will do so.
The sorts of redevelopments that we have in mind are not a mini Burnie Court or a 1960s-style six-pack block of flats, three up, three down, with the architectural qualities of a shoe box, of which there are a few in Canberra, but fortunately only a few, whereas if you drive through Sydney, Melbourne or Adelaide you see suburbs where there is block after block of them. What we have in mind, if members get alarmed about talk of gradually redeveloping the Housing Trust inner city assets, is very much the Yanga Court-style redevelopment on Flinders Way at Manuka, which is architecturally sympathetic, thereby allowing elderly residents who perhaps have been in Housing Trust properties in the inner city for many years to move to more appropriate accommodation, while still retaining their links with the suburb, so that other younger families can perhaps backfill into those properties.
It is a valuable community asset. The Government is concerned that these sorts of legislative amendments would, over time, see that asset whittled away. We have no problem with people purchasing houses. There is, however, a cost every time a person purchases a trust property and it has to be replaced by another property that we have to spot purchase.
Mr Humphries: You have the sale price to put towards that - - -
MR CONNOLLY: Yes, we do, but the price for which the tenant purchases the house is at a discount to the ordinary market price, in this sense - - -
Mr Humphries: No, it is not.
MR CONNOLLY: No, in this sense, Mr Humphries; we value the property, less any improvements that the tenant has made. A tenant who has been in the house now for eight years can say to us, "Look, I put in that garden, I put in those sprinkler systems, and I put in all of those improvements". When we value the property - - -
Mr Humphries: You have not read the Bill - "Sale price, current market value of the dwelling determined by independent valuations".
MR CONNOLLY: Yes, and that is what we do at the moment. You are suggesting that we be harsher on persons who purchase properties, are you? Mr Humphries, our price is the market value of the property, as determined by a valuer; but the valuer, in determining the market value of the property, looks
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