Page 1952 - Week 07 - Wednesday, 15 June 1994
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .
Housing Trust has the ability to buy further properties, perhaps properties that cost them less, and they can use their money more wisely. There is a further situation, Madam Speaker, that applies here. There is a great need for Housing Trust homes but not so much for stand-alone homes. We have more and more single-parent families and single people in need of public housing. We can ensure that as development occurs the Housing Trust can have some control over that issue. The amendment that Mr Cornwell has foreshadowed will allow that process.
Madam Speaker, the issue of the period of five years is one that I have not had the opportunity to discuss at this stage with the Minister, but it does seem to me to be a reasonable period. In that time people are able to decide whether to make that house their home and to put work into it, as indeed the vast majority of public housing tenants do, to ensure that their gardens are beautiful. They look forward to the time when they have the opportunity to purchase it, provided they meet the other criteria that the Bill will set. For those reasons, Madam Speaker, the Bill as presented, with the foreshadowed amendment, seems to me to be a reasonable approach. It is a quite sensible Bill.
MR LAMONT (Minister for Urban Services, Minister for Housing and Community Services, Minister for Industrial Relations and Minister for Sport) (11.45), by leave: I thank Mr Moore for his comments, but I will I take this opportunity to point out a number of things to him. Look at page 2, under the heading "Tenant's right of purchase", proposed new section 17A. The foreshadowed amendment of Mr Cornwell's would add the words "(d) the ACT Housing Trust agrees". It would then read:
The tenant of a dwelling is entitled to purchase the dwelling if -
... ... ...
(d) the ACT Housing Trust agrees.
Why do we not just scrub everything else and have that? When you look at the principles that Mr Cornwell's Bill attempts to put into law, the first one is that "the tenant has resided in the dwelling for a period of not less than 5 years after the commencement of the tenancy". What about the Housing Trust tenant who has been a tenant for 25 years and is relocated for some reason, such as the age of the house, to new premises and then wishes to purchase? They have been a Housing Trust tenant for 25 years, but because of this Bill they will be restricted in being able to apply to purchase a house. That is the first problem with this Bill.
Mr Kaine: They cannot buy it at all now.
MR LAMONT: That is incorrect, Mr Kaine, and you know that it is incorrect. Throughout that period the tenant has paid the full non-rebated rent in respect of the dwelling.
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .