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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2000 Week 7 Hansard (29 June) . . Page.. 2325 ..

MS TUCKER (continuing):

The provision of public housing provides the key platform from which people experiencing disadvantage or low incomes can address other life concerns, such as health, education and training, as well as seeking, obtaining and maintaining employment. The intention to move from a public housing to a welfare housing model will shift tenants out of public housing altogether. In light of the extraordinarily tight rental market and the GST-driven increase in rent, a critical shortage of affordable accommodation will develop in the next few years and will consequently increase demand for crisis accommodation and support, which I will speak about later in the appropriate line for education and community services. We know that crisis accommodation and support is very stretched and actually non-existent for some groups in the community.

There are real concerns about what is going to be happening across the board in Canberra for people who are disadvantaged. I think there is a 1 per cent slack in the private rental market at the moment. Maybe that percentage is going to increase slightly, but we know that some people are always disadvantaged when seeking accommodation in the private rental market. Clearly, there is discrimination against particular groups. Real estate agents do not even pretend that that is not the case-they say so.

We could say, for example, that indigenous people, families, and people with children are not always welcome, and that people with pets are not necessarily welcome. Security of tenure is a big issue for people, and public housing has traditionally given security of tenure. This has been a fundamental aspect of provision of government services in this critical area, and I would have thought the major aspect of any government's pursuit of developing social capital in its community.

There is a Commonwealth government-funded first home owners grant scheme by way of compensation for the impact of GST. Even that is interesting in light of the broad concerns I am raising about the government and the federal government's regressive approach to taxation. We know that federal government policies are increasingly regressive. While that is not necessarily the fault of the local government, I think there is an onus on the local government to respond, to try to compensate for the effects of these regressive taxation policies on those who are particularly vulnerable in our community.

I would have thought the first home owners grant scheme was one way of looking at those issues. I did address this in estimates, when Mr Smyth said that this was something that was dealt with by Mr Humphries, that it was an arrangement with the states and territories and the federal government and that it was basically tied up at that level. I still asked, "Did you, as Minister for Urban Services, who hopefully has some reasonable knowledge of the situation of housing in Canberra, make representations to Mr Humphries about perhaps suggesting to the federal government that there may be some means testing, or another redistributor function, to compensate for the federal government's approach when these grants were being offered?" However, it appeared fairly clear from Mr Smyth's response that that discussion had not occurred.

I would like to mention the cross-portfolio and interagency youth housing task force, which is a commendable initiative launched by the Minister for Urban Services and the minister for youth and community services. This budget has raised concern in the community because there is a fear that the task force, while enthusiastically received by government ministers, has had no resources dedicated to its implementation. Indeed,

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