Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . .

Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1996 Week 10 Hansard (3 September) . . Page.. 2990 ..

MR WHITECROSS (continuing):

Mr Speaker, like all interesting ideas, the execution is quite important. One of the problems we have here is that people are trying to put more money in the pockets of private renters while, at the same time, having a zero sum gain. Of course, the end result of that is inevitably that there are losers. As things stand, those losers look like coming from the public housing sector. A recent article in the Sydney Morning Herald, canvassing some of the issues as seen by the New South Wales Housing Department, talked about an analysis of where they saw the negotiations on the Commonwealth-State Housing Agreement going. The article stated:

Sources in the States say that rents will rise because the Federal Government will calculate how much each State can raise from levying commercial rents and then cut grants accordingly. Federal sources have confirmed this. The New South Wales Department of Housing estimates that that could cost public housing tenants $40 a week.

I have not seen their analysis, but that is the analysis of the New South Wales Department of Housing. If that is the direction in which things go, and if the Federal Government are going to use this as an opportunity to make some further savings in their own budget at the expense of public housing tenants, that is, indeed, a worrying trend.

Mr Speaker, one of the important things that I want to talk about today is the importance of there continuing to be a strong role for public ownership of a proportion of the housing stock. There are a number of good reasons, and I just want to address a few of them. The opportunity that public ownership of housing provides for the Government to ensure good practice in its management of stock through construction of well-designed, properly sited and environmentally sound housing is a key issue. In this house last week we were discussing the importance of aged persons units as a part of the housing stock which is not in sufficient supply at the moment.

Public housing can play a role in rectifying those imbalances and can play a role that commercial investors cannot necessarily be relied on to play because commercial operators will always go for the lowest common denominator in housing; they will go for the kind of housing that offers the maximum opportunities to rent out their property; and they will not always be building specialist housing to meet specialist requirements. There are not too many investors out there who are going to build five-bedroom houses for the rental market, but there are people in need of public housing who need large houses. Public housing can play a role in ensuring an appropriate mix, Mr Speaker. But public housing plays another role, which is in providing a more secure form of rental tenure than people can get in the private rental market. Public housing authorities provide the role of a model landlord for their tenants.

All of us, I am sure, have had complaints from time to time about ACT Housing's treatment of individual tenants. No doubt, some of those complaints have been justified; but, overall, it is unquestioned that public tenancy is a much more pleasant experience for the tenants than private tenancy and whatever problems public tenants might have in getting maintenance done on their properties would pale into insignificance compared to the difficulties lots of private tenants have in getting maintenance done on their properties.

Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . .