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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1996 Week 9 Hansard (28 August) . . Page.. 2672 ..

MR STEFANIAK: Have a look at the motion. Also, 32 per cent of current public housing tenants are 55 years or over, but only 10.5 per cent of the current stock is purpose built for aged persons.

We also have a situation where one-third of our current public housing properties are over 30 years old, and 10 per cent are over 40 years old. Many of those properties are becoming expensive to maintain, and they are nearing the end of their economic life. Some of our properties are also inappropriately designed, making them expensive to heat and unpopular with tenants. For example, there are about 300 properties of monocrete sheeting. A further 630 properties are weatherboard, and that too is costly to maintain in an adequate condition. These are all the sorts of considerations that face a housing trust such as ours. Some of the stock is being used for purposes for which it was not designed. For example, some of the blocks of flats providing long-term accommodation for tenants were built originally as temporary accommodation for public servants moving here for employment in the 1950s, 1960s and early 1970s.

Mr Speaker, the moneys paid by the Commonwealth under the Commonwealth-State Housing Agreement are for capital works. They are not for funding the day-to-day operations of ACT Housing. The Government has still been able to establish a capital works program that will provide up to 200 new units this financial year. The amount of money provided this financial year for public housing has been boosted by $8.2m allocated from the better cities program. The bulk of these funds was originally allocated for the proposed North Watson development that did not go ahead and is now available for the Condamine Court flats redevelopment program - a program that is very popular with tenants and opens up some exciting possibilities on Northbourne Avenue, the gateway to Canberra. When one looks at that, we are talking about an extra $8.2m going directly towards public housing.

Some of the funds for capital works will come from the sale of existing properties. This is in line with the policy of selling off hard-to-let and uneconomic properties and replacing them with smaller properties to better match the needs of our clients. This is not a new policy. It has been the practice over a number of years. For the years 1995-96, 1994-95 and 1993-94, sales of 64, 80 and 82 dwellings were made respectively. This has been a longstanding practice adopted by all States and Territories. It is not, as the Opposition might have us believe, something new. It was going on while they were running the ACT.

I come now to the rights of public tenants. The rights of public tenants will be protected. Tenants will be required to move from their dwellings only in special circumstances such as if major refurbishment is required. In these circumstances consultation with tenants will take place, as it has been undertaken for the Condamine Court redevelopment, and tenants will be offered other suitable accommodation. The rights of public housing tenants will also be strengthened as a result of the proposed new ACT residential tenancy law soon to be introduced into the Assembly. Subject to consideration of a number of key issues relating to the scope and nature of public housing, the Government has agreed in principle that ACT Housing tenancies will be brought under the protection of the proposed new law. Under this proposed new legislative regime our housing tenants,

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