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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1996 Week 7 Hansard (18 June) . . Page.. 1797 ..

MS TUCKER (continuing):

I have only just received the proposed new Commonwealth-State Housing Agreement and I look forward to receiving a briefing, but there are obviously some significant changes. There is a definite shift towards the market model of housing provision, and this is reflected in the objects. The Greens are also concerned that we do not see anywhere in this Bill a reference to energy conservation, which is alarming in the extreme because we have an opportunity here to set up some kind of model. You might have noticed that in the Canberra Times today there was an article about how inappropriate a lot of our housing still is for the climate and for the targets that we have set to reduce greenhouse gases, and a major part of that, of course, is always going to be conservation of energy. We have an opportunity to do that in any housing policy, and we will be hoping that that will be acted upon and improved upon.

I notice that in the objectives set in the Bill there is this statement:

... to promote the establishment of appropriate mechanisms and forums to allow input to housing policy by consumers, and potential consumers, of housing assistance and by representative non-government agencies involved in housing policy and provision;

So there is an opportunity there for more input from energy conservation groups to integrate those concerns into this policy.

It is useful to have the objects explicitly defined in the legislation. I think it is important to note, as Ms Reilly has, that there is quite a shift in the objectives. The existing agreement states that the primary principle of this agreement is to ensure that every person has access to secure, adequate and appropriate housing at a price within his or her capacity to pay. Under the new agreement, in the corresponding objects in this Bill, the first objective is "to maximise the opportunities for everyone in the Territory to have access to housing which is affordable, secure and appropriate to their needs". Access to appropriate and affordable housing is of the utmost importance in our community, and I hope that the new agreement will ensure access and equity as well as the promotion of greater diversity in housing in the ACT.

MR MOORE (11.29): Mr Speaker, in this legislation the objects of the Act are identified and I think they are, as Ms Reilly appropriately pointed out, worth looking at and worth understanding. I do not think anybody could really have any huge difficulty with the social justice that underlies the objects of the Act. For that reason, I would like to congratulate the Minister on bringing this agreement to the house. "To maximise the opportunities for everyone in the Territory to have access to housing which is affordable, secure and appropriate to their needs" is, in itself, a grand goal, Mr Speaker. It distinguishes, as I have a number of times in this house, although perhaps not in this Third Assembly, the difference between public housing and welfare housing, and I think it is a very important distinction that is worth making just one more time. When we use government housing to look after just those in need it soon becomes very clear that welfare housing becomes marginalised housing. It tends to go to the fringes of the suburban areas, and it tends to go into the less desirable areas within the ACT.

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