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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2000 Week 6 Hansard (24 May) . . Page.. 1667 ..

MR SMYTH (continuing):

fundamental thing about social capital. It is about building up the quality of life where people are. That is what you fail to understand. It is what you hate about this government because you know that we are delivering on this. The rental-

Mr Wood: Social capital says keep them out of Red Hill. That is what you are saying. Social capital will not allow them to live at Red Hill.

MR SPEAKER: Mr Wood!

Mr Wood: Well, that is what it is about, Mr Speaker.

MR SMYTH: Mr Speaker, the rental market is tight. Mr Wood says that social capital will not allow them to live at Red Hill. The Labor Party would leave tenants in the government flats at Red Hill living in substandard accommodation. The Labor Party's housing policy is change nothing, do nothing, do not build up the quality of life for ACT Housing tenants.

The point is that we have done two redevelopments and we are about to undertake a third. I refer, firstly, to Macpherson Court, which we have transferred to Community Housing Canberra. Community Housing Canberra, in association with a private developer working with ACT Housing, will buy back into Macpherson Court and deliver a variety of environmentally sustainable quality accommodation that caters for the private, the public and the community housing sector. It is a model for redevelopment around this country. They hate what we are doing because we can build up social capital, we can build up the quality of life, we can improve the quality of life of our tenants and we will do so.

How did we do that? We did it by managing it on a person by person basis. We stationed staff, and I commend the ACT Housing staff who moved in and set up office in Macpherson Court and dealt with all of these people on an individual basis. These are people who deserve to be dealt with on an individual basis. We did this because we wanted to help address quality of life issues where they live.

We did the same at Lachlan Court. Lachlan Court had 119 bedsitters that were substandard. Again, the model is tremendous and the ACT Housing staff that managed that process is to be fully complimented. They moved in, they set up office and they met these tenants as individuals. They said, "Where would you like to go, what do you need, what do you want?" and we addressed their needs. That is why Lachlan Court was even quicker in terms of decanting the tenants and moving them to better housing. At the same time, the waiting list did not blow out because we are managing our stock better.

Mr Stanhope: They all left town, you put the rent up.

MR SMYTH: They had not left town. The population of the ACT is increasing, Mr Stanhope. You are just wrong. You people have run the line for the last six years that all these people are moving out, but the population of the ACT has increased, the workforce numbers of the ACT have increased and the way that we have looked after public housing tenants over the last five years is better than your government ever could have done.

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