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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1996 Week 9 Hansard (28 August) . . Page.. 2668 ..

Mr Whitecross: There is not any. She has just admitted that.

MS REILLY: As you say, there is none, but we are going to be pushing people into private accommodation. We are going to be pushing people into the private rental market, a market that is not concerned for the renter. We are pushing people who at times have trouble accessing private accommodation for a number of reasons. There are people within our community who have trouble maintaining their accommodation.

Obviously, for a private landlord, the core business is profit. They are not going to be concerned about whether these people are maintaining their accommodation, whether they are going to end up homeless, whether the families are going to have no way of surviving or whether people are living in cars. They are concerned about the payment of the rent. That is their major concern. That is fair enough. They are private landlords. But I do not think the Government needs to follow that path. It needs to recognise its responsibilities in assisting a number of people to maintain their accommodation and to maintain their housing, because without housing other things do not happen either. Housing is a most important basic need. If people are not properly housed, it affects their access to education, affects their access to training and affects their access to jobs.

If we push people into private accommodation, we also have the further problem of the tenancy laws within the ACT. We have a very old Landlord and Tenant Act, and this Government has been very slow to introduce a new one. It has been discussed. It has gone to the Law Reform Committee, but nothing has been done to introduce it. It has been listed - - -

Mrs Carnell: You had four years in government.

MS REILLY: You have had 18 months and you have done nothing to expedite it. If it had been of genuine concern, I am sure you could have managed to put the Bill up much quicker. You have had the opportunity. The Bill has been listed, but I note from talking to people within the community who will be affected by it that there has been no consultation and no discussion of what is in the Bill. If it is introduced this session, there will be quite a lag before it can be passed. People are being forced into private rental accommodation, with very poor laws to protect them in any way at all.

How can we go on ignoring the needs of people who need assistance with housing? Let us say that we do not worry about that and we go ahead and sell off the mass of public housing stock we have. We now say that it is not likely that we will sell off the whole lot at once; that 12,500 units coming on the market would rather flood it. Even a smaller amount would cause problems. Consider the number of houses on the market at any one time in the ACT. Apparently, there are about 1,600 on the ACT market now. Figures that have been in the paper - and who can say whether they are right or not? - would suggest that you are looking to sell about 1,300 or 1,400 units. What would be the impact of putting that many houses on the market again?

Mrs Carnell: Mr Stefaniak told you yesterday that it was between 180 and 200.

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