Page 163 - Week 01 - Wednesday, 23 February 1994
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MR HUMPHRIES (12.00): Madam Speaker, I think that in this debate there has been some extraordinarily sloppy logic applied in working out what it is that is proposed in this Housing Assistance (Amendment) Bill. Let me clear up a few misapprehensions. It is not proposed that government housing, once sold, should not be replaced. There is no reference in this Bill to a house that has been sold not being replaced. There is nothing to say that you cannot buy another house with the money that you get from the proceeds. If the Government sells a nice desirable property to an existing tenant in Ainslie, it has the right to use the purchase price from that sale to purchase another house in Ainslie and preserve the housing stock.
Mr Connolly: Mr Cornwell would say, "Shock, horror! You could have housed two families in Conder".
MR HUMPHRIES: You are the Minister; you set the policy. You can decide whether houses are bought and sold. If someone wants to sell a house in Ainslie you can buy another one in Ainslie. There is absolutely no reason to suggest that the housing stock is going to be depleted merely because tenants have the right to buy their own properties.
The other strange assumption here is that we are going to be dramatically altering the mix of housing and the mix of housing tenants in the ACT. Ms Szuty has suggested that by making available housing stock in the ACT for sale to people who have paid the full non-rebated rent in respect of their tenancy you will make a significant difference to the balance of those sorts of tenants within the housing system. The fact, Madam Speaker, is that at the present time only 15 per cent of tenants of the ACT Housing Trust are paying the full non-rebated rent. A reduction from 15 per cent to 12 per cent, or even to 10 per cent, is going to make an extremely small difference to the mix of tenants in public housing. In fact, the difference is arguably no difference at all.
Madam Speaker, there have been a few other extraordinary statements. Ms Szuty has suggested that tenants, rather than buy their own homes, would be able to move out and buy somewhere else in the area. The point of this legislation is that when a tenant has been in a Housing Trust property for a reasonable period they have established an affection for a house, a sense of proprietorship of a house. They want to look after that house on a long-term basis and they want to buy it. They should be able to buy that house; not another house down the block, not another house where they have not planted the garden, not another house where they have not done some improvements, but that house. That is what this Bill is all about - giving them the capacity to invest in the house that they already have made some investment in. It is not going to be satisfactory to those people to be told, "You cannot buy this house; go and find another house somewhere else in the same street or the same suburb". That is not the point.
Ms Szuty suggested that people should be entitled to a reduction in the purchase price to reflect the improvements that they have made. The Minister has made the same point here. I am sorry that neither of them is listening, but it seems to me that they are missing the point entirely. If the Housing Trust wishes to sell to a tenant on the basis that they give a reduction in the purchase price for
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