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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1996 Week 10 Hansard (3 September) . . Page.. 2989 ..

MR MOORE (continuing):

in fact, will wind up, from a purely dry economic perspective, costing us much more in the long run as we wind up with a system of welfare housing that provides for disempowered, disenfranchised people without housing. We will get an exacerbation of the contrast between those who are well off and those who are not. Whenever we have seen that in any other country we have seen a greater expenditure on law and order; we have seen a greater emphasis on law and order. In other words, trying to fix up the problem afterwards is like closing the gate after the horse has bolted. What we have here is the opportunity to try to ensure that we retain a system that actually protects community values and distributes the different values of our community right across the nation. I have a seventh point. What guarantee have we that the Government will continue to supply welfare and other public housing if the Federal Government pays directly to tenants? There is that issue politically that I think is something that we will also have to wrestle with.

There are possible advantages. Perhaps there will be more money in the coffers for community investment. It may be that we suddenly get a wider variety of houses to meet the community needs. Perhaps we can manage in this way to give tenants more choice and more control over where they want to live. The fourth advantage is that we may well be able to reduce waiting lists through this process. Like all policy changes, it is very rarely the case that it is all bad or all good. Also, as with most policy changes, we normally have some people trying to emphasise one or two small parts of what is positive about a policy change and ignoring the downsides. I think that what we have to do - and I hope that this Minister will do this when he goes into the negotiations - is realise that there are some considerable downsides and ensure that the positive sides are not outweighed by those downsides. However, it is a negotiation that he is going to have to enter into with the Federal Government in a situation where I believe that he will be significantly outnumbered. After all, it is a Commonwealth-State - and Territory - Housing Agreement. It is on an agreement basis, and I think that we should be trying to ensure - and this Minister should be charged with ensuring - that our public housing system is retained and we do not change the system of welfare housing.

MR WHITECROSS (Leader of the Opposition) (5.26): Madam Deputy Speaker, this issue is, indeed, an issue of great importance. I think the issue of what kind of social infrastructure we have, and how we look after it, is a very important one. It is all the more important in the current climate where there are so many attacks on social infrastructure. Mr Moore, in his remarks on this matter, made some reference to the direction of the Commonwealth-State Housing Agreement and to the ideas of Brian Howe on which the current negotiations appear to be based. The key issue, which should not be overlooked, is that one of Brian Howe's motivations and observations on which he was basing his policy direction was the fact that the most disadvantaged people in the community are welfare recipients. I take Mr Moore's point that there is more to public housing than welfare, but the most disadvantaged people in the community, in the welfare net, are private renters; unequivocally, they are the most disadvantaged. Finding a way of getting more money into the pockets of those private renters is an important goal.

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