Page 367 - Week 02 - Wednesday, 2 March 1994
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Madam Speaker, the argument is no different if the house is in Charnwood or in any other suburb in Canberra. If you sell a house in Richardson for, say, $120,000, there may not be another one on the market there that you can buy anyway. The situation in Charnwood, Richardson, Gordon or Ainslie is no different from the situation in Reid. But, of course, it suited Mr Connolly to say, "Reid is obviously the yardstick, and you might not be able to buy a house every day in Reid". It is not only in connection with the better status suburbs that that argument could apply. If the Minister sells a house to a tenant in, say, Richardson after eight years - which is his present milestone - it may not be possible to buy another house in Richardson, because at that time there may not be another suitable house available in Richardson, so he has to buy one some place else. Of course, it is a specious argument anyway, because on many occasions it may suit the Housing Trust to buy a house in another suburb anyway, depending on what their current spread of stock is and how many houses they have in the suburb in which the house is being sold.
I simply do not see that any of the arguments that Mr Connolly has put forward so far against this Bill have any validity. They do not stand up to any kind of scrutiny whatsoever. I repeat that it demonstrates to me an absolute lack of political nous on Mr Connolly's part that he chooses to disadvantage two people - both the tenant who wants to buy the house and the person on the waiting list who could be accommodated if the house were sold. He chooses to disadvantage two people instead of selling the house and giving two people the advantage that they are seeking. I can only suggest to Mr Connolly that he rethink his position, rethink his argument, see how shallow it is and how it simply does not stand up to any scrutiny, and support Mr Cornwell's Bill.
MR CORNWELL (10.51), in reply: Madam Speaker, one of my colleagues said in the debate last week that we were indeed dealing with some very sloppy logic. I can only echo those sentiments. First of all, the Government put up the furphy about the loss of inner city properties. An example of a property in Reid worth $300,000 was given. How many Housing Trust tenants could afford to pay $300,000 for a property at Reid? In Reid the Housing Trust owns 30 properties. It is hardly an enormous number, and I would suggest to you that that would even reduce the number of people who would be interested in purchasing the properties.
Mrs Grassby: Why?
MR CORNWELL: Mrs Grassby wants to know why. I would be very curious to know why a Housing Trust tenant should necessarily have $300,000 to purchase such a property. Let me go on. Part of the problem here is that people have misunderstood just what is involved. Eighty-five per cent of Housing Trust housing is now welfare housing. Therefore, under my amendment only 15 per cent would be eligible to purchase their houses. This works out at about a maximum of 1,230 of the 8,000-plus properties in the housing stock of this Territory.
I put it to you that the argument about inner city houses also does not make sense in that, if you accept that 85 per cent of the properties are welfare housing, it is reasonable to assume that 85 per cent of the stock in each of the suburbs are also welfare houses; therefore, only 15 per cent in any suburb - inner city, outer city or anywhere else in the middle, for that matter - would be eligible for sale to tenants. In other words, the stock that these people are concerned about losing
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