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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 7 Hansard (25 June) . . Page.. 2141 ..

MS REILLY (continuing):

It is interesting to notice that there are continuing negotiations on the Commonwealth-State Housing Agreement. Minister, you should be congratulated for taking a stand against the Commonwealth Minister at the last meeting. But I hope that they will continue to fund the CSHA, because the way in which housing can be delivered to people who need assistance with housing in the most equitable and fair way is by continuing the Commonwealth grants, through to the States, for the provision of public housing. This is going to be important, to ensure that in the future we continue to have a strong public housing sector in the ACT and in the rest of Australia. This is the only way a lot of people will be able to afford housing that is well designed, well planned and well located, as most of the housing stock in the ACT is.

The Minister should be proud of his housing stock, rather than trying to sell so much of it and rather than saying, "It is all too old" or "It is too difficult to look after". I think you should have pride in it. This is the largest public housing sector in Australia. You should be proud of that, Minister, instead of selling it off all the time. Why do you not take care of it? Be proud, Minister.

Mr Stefaniak: We are spending more on maintenance than you lot did.

MS REILLY: Shout the initiatives from the rooftops, instead of just crawling into those meetings and saying, "I have old housing stock. I have too much here. I have too much in some areas. I have too much in well-located inner suburbs". That brings us to the waiting list.

Mr Stefaniak: It is a one-for-one replacement thing. You sell one, and you have to get another one, Marion.

MR SPEAKER: If you two want to have a debate, you can go outside and do it, but not across the table.

MS REILLY: Mr Speaker, I cannot help it if he keeps calling out. I am continuing to present the information I want to present.

The Minister raised the issue of the housing waiting list. It is growing quite considerably at a time when Canberra's population is not growing at all. As well as there being absolutely discouraged maintenance requesters, a number of people are probably discouraged from trying to stay here and discouraged from getting jobs, and they have probably gone elsewhere. I knew that you would raise the fact that the housing list was a lot bigger when Labor was in government. I think you should be congratulated for your initiative in doing a proper culling of that list. It is not as though the list actually changed that radically. It is still an extremely large list, and it is growing every year. You are close to that magic 7,000 figure that you keep quoting. But you did an excellent job, and it is always very effective to do a good culling of any waiting list on a regular basis.

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