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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1996 Week 12 Hansard (21 November) . . Page.. 4123 ..

MR STEFANIAK (continuing):

Further, in relation to maintenance, before I go on, you will recall that we are currently trialling a new one-stop shop type of system in Belconnen. It has proved to be a pretty successful trial. An individual officer has responsibility for about 300 or 320 houses and is the contact point for tenants in terms of maintenance. That is working quite well. That means that a tenant knows who their housing officer is and who can be called upon to look after various matters relating to the tenant, various tenant problems, including maintenance. That is a logical system which is working quite well. Recent customer surveys done at the Belconnen office indicate that some 73 per cent of people think that the service that they are getting there is considerably improved on what was there before. That will be extended to Tuggeranong, assuming the Belconnen pilot works well, and it is working well to date. Those are some of the improvements which should benefit tenants.

You people knock Kick Start. You knock Kick Start like you knock any good idea, like you knocked the stadium at Acton. If you go nitpicking you will find a problem with anything. Kick Start started towards the end of September. I cannot remember the exact date, but it was after the budget. As at 5 November, 23 people had either taken it up or were in the process of taking it up. That is not too bad in about five weeks. As you know, we will be looking at that in February and reporting back to see how well it goes. It is a program that gives people a chance to own their own home. It is a program which gives them $5,000 and a few extra benefits worth up to about $8,500. It is for people who have an income of less than $45,000. It gives those people an opportunity to own their own home and that, I think, is a very desirable thing. If 500 take it up, that is great. If only 200 or 300 take it up, that is 200 or 300 people who might not have had that opportunity if we had not developed a program like that.

Ms Reilly: How many jobs?

MR STEFANIAK: Because some of those houses will be new, that will create some jobs. Also, Ms Reilly, that then will also create houses available for people on the waiting list to go into. You may knock that all you like, but it is a good program that certainly is going to benefit a number of people.

When you look at all those things, all being considered it certainly is not a bad housing budget. There are some new projects coming on stream. Yes, we do have a lot of public housing stock that, in a way, because some of it is old, causes problems with maintenance; but it does give us considerable flexibility compared with other States. It is spread right throughout Canberra and there are a number of initiatives being taken this year. This year is a tough year for every area in the ACT because of the state of the economy and the problems that we face financially. Some of the initiatives taken here, I think, are very positive and will be of considerable benefit to our tenants.

MS TUCKER (2.36 am): Mr Speaker, direct provision of affordable housing for low-income earners is the most important item in the budget of any State or Territory government whose primary objective is to alleviate poverty and economic hardship. In the budget before us tonight the Government has demonstrated by its attitude to housing that poverty alleviation is not a high priority. The ACT Government can do little to increase people's incomes. Most of the areas that directly impact on individual and family incomes are controlled by the Commonwealth. However, the ACT Government

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