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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1996 Week 7 Hansard (18 June) . . Page.. 1793 ..

MS REILLY (continuing):

If we disengage the Schedule from the Act as it now stands, this does allow the Minister more flexibility in action. He also has the opportunity to sign this agreement and does not have to come back to the Assembly for many days after he has signed it. In this case it would be well into the next financial year before the Assembly has the opportunity to see the new housing agreement. There is a draft agreement being circulated at the moment; but the Minister, in all his modesty, does not feel the need to circulate it to his Assembly colleagues. Upon request, I did receive a copy; but it was not offered. One wonders, then, Minister, whether you are actually ashamed of some parts of this new agreement. There is a great shift in some of the provisions, if you look at some of the basis upon which this agreement has been set up. In fact, there are many good things in the agreement.

Unfortunately, it has failed to properly address the most central issue of housing, which is housing affordability. Quite a number of studies have considered the central importance of housing affordability, the last one being the national housing strategy which looked at this issue in close detail in 1992 and put up a number of propositions to take account of this. It also set out quite explicitly what happens when people do not have access to affordable housing. People continue to live in poverty. If private rents take up 50 per cent or more of the family income, which is quite possible, problems arise. You have stress on families; you have overcrowding; you have people maintaining their houses so that they have a roof over their heads, but not being able to have any of the other amenities that you would expect in Australian society today. I think many people would have seen the broadcast on the weekend about migrants living in Australia and some of their problems with access to housing now. This may not be the case in the ACT; but, if we do not guard against it, it could be the ACT. In the previous agreement that this Bill is replacing, this was the primary principle that was addressed. It stated that the primary principle of the agreement was to ensure that every person in Australia had access to secure, adequate and appropriate housing, at a price within his or her capacity to pay, by seeking to alleviate housing-related poverty and to ensure that housing assistance, as far as possible, was delivered equitably to persons resident in different forms of housing tenure. There is not such a strong statement in the new agreement.

One of the other positive parts, and there are many positive parts, Minister, of the amendments that you are suggesting, is the insertion of an objects clause. It is good to see some statement of the commitment that your Government has to housing provision, and this is a very positive move; but it would have been useful if you had used the words that are in the draft agreement put out by the Commonwealth. There seems to be a reluctance to accept some of the words that are in there. Do you not agree with the agreement, even if you are going to sign it? In there they have been quite straightforward in suggesting the principles under which there should be housing assistance. It talks about assistance being responsive to the needs of the consumers. You will note that in the objects in this amendment Bill consumers do not rate a mention on their own. They are obviously implicit in all the amendments, but they are not mentioned on their own, and that would have been a very helpful thing to have in there.

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