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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1996 Week 10 Hansard (3 September) . . Page.. 2992 ..

MRS CARNELL (Chief Minister) (5.37): Mr Speaker, I was interested to read the actual matter of public importance for today, and that is:

The importance of maintaining the levels of government ownership of public housing in the ACT.

I have to ask: What levels? The current levels? If it is the current levels that we are talking about, then that is exactly what we are doing, Mr Speaker. In fact, Ms Reilly made that point quite eloquently, I thought. She said that we were selling 200 houses and probably building about 200 houses, which means we are doing exactly what Ms Reilly suggested we do in the matter of public importance.

I do not know what we have just spoken about for an hour, because there is no doubt that the Government does support government ownership of public housing in the ACT. We believe strongly that there is a proportion of the market which should be owned by the Government. As Mr Whitecross, I think, rightly said, that is either in the purpose built accommodation for people with disabilities and larger houses or, alternatively, in the other end of the market, APUs and so on, that the private sector simply will not pick up, no matter what. It is important that the Government maintains ownership in the area of the market that the private sector is not covering. It is also important, I think, that the Government keeps a broad range of ownership in all areas but concentrates on the ends of the market where there is the most need.

The Government has some very significant problems with the proposal - the Brian Howe proposal, we should call it - currently picked up by the Federal Government.

Mr Whitecross: You should not call it the Brian Howe proposal. He is not the Minister. It is the Howard-Costello proposal.

MRS CARNELL: I think it is the Brian Howe proposal; that is what it will be known as. From an ACT perspective, the sorts of concerns that the ACT Government has at this stage are to ensure that people, particularly in the inner north and inner south, often people who have been living in their houses for many years, are not faced with significant rent increases. We believe strongly that rent percentages should be pegged to pension levels and so on. We do not believe that people should be facing increases from possibly 25 or 20 per cent of their pension through to 40 per cent or whatever, and we certainly will not be supporting any approach that does that. It would not be fair; it would not be equitable.

Equally, I think that there is a very good argument to suggest, as Mr Moore was talking about, that public housing is not welfare housing. Welfare housing is a part of public housing. Public housing is much broader than that. If more choice can be provided by having some private sector ownership in our public housing stock, then we believe that we should look at those sorts of proposals. I believe Mr Moore would agree with that, and I think even Mr Whitecross would. He did actually indicate that there should be some government ownership of public housing. He did not suggest that all public housing should be owned by the government. Maybe that was a slip of the tongue, Mr Whitecross.

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