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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1996 Week 10 Hansard (3 September) . . Page.. 2980 ..

MS REILLY (continuing):

Brian Howe was concerned about the age of public housing stock in Australia and was looking at ways in which there could be commercial incentives to assist the cost-effectiveness of public housing. In other words, he wanted better housing for consumers. He did not suggest that we should get rid of housing. He did not suggest that if we have a wholesale sell-off that will improve access to housing. It is easy to pick the eyes out of some policies and use only some parts of the policies and pretend this was the whole. Yes, some parts of Brian Howe's policies were to go on, but some parts have been conveniently forgotten. Consequently, because it is known that there are going to be changes to the Commonwealth-State Housing Agreement and to the way in which funding will be allocated for public housing in the ACT, there are rumours about what is going to happen. There have been rumours because there has been no effort to inform the ACT community about what is happening, and it is reasonable to think the people should be consulted because many people want to keep this important asset.

Many people enjoy living in the ACT because of this public asset; they appreciate a community that has such high public ownership of housing which is well located throughout the ACT; and they want to maintain this important social capital. One of the things about having such a high public housing asset is that in the ACT there is no stigma attached to public housing or public housing tenants. We do not have ghettos in the ACT. We have areas that may have more public housing than others, but we do not end up with whole suburbs of public housing. It is shocking to hear that, in fact, you have some streets where it is all public housing. Do you know the other shocking thing about housing in the ACT? You have some streets where it is all private housing. This is also of grave concern. We need to be talking about maintaining this asset, not getting caught on sideways and byways where we talk about high levels in some suburbs. Why is this going to be the criterion for changing?

As well as just the number of houses we may have in the ACT - and we were given large slabs of statistics which were supposed to replace a plan - there was no mention of the broad range and broad spectrum of housing programs which were affected by these changes. Obviously, community housing is one of those. It is a growth area and it is an important area. I think there would be advantages, and I am sure most of the community would appreciate more housing being allocated for community housing as well. But one needs to think about which houses will be allocated to them. What does it do to develop a strong community housing sector if they get houses which need high maintenance and which they are unable to maintain?

The other important point that needs to be considered is crisis accommodation. We have a number of programs that assist women and youth, in particular, and we need to ensure that they continue and do not get lost in this sort of scramble to sell off public housing. We also need to continue to support various youth programs for housing. These youths, because of some of the changes that will come through the Commonwealth budget, have been battered about their ears in a number of ways, and we do not need to add to that by taking away housing programs as well. You have only to ask: How will the loss of public housing properties assist those people in need, and how will the loss of public ownership of housing give greater choice to the people of the ACT? You need only ask the people who are homeless or in inadequate accommodation in Victoria what choice they have at the moment.

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