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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2000 Week 12 Hansard (7 December) . . Page.. 3830 ..

MS TUCKER (continuing):

not appeared. When we realised that this report was so late, I was hoping at least that meant some work was being done. But there has been no assessment. The recommendation also required that the government bring that assessment to the Assembly for debate.

I have selected critical recommendations for the government to go back and respond to meaningfully. The first and second recommendations relate to security of tenure both for public housing and for community housing. The government claims to have supported them in principle but, as I said, immediately you read past that statement, it is clear that they have maintained their position totally.

The claim is made that the government supports providing security of tenure to those people who are in greatest need of public housing and for the period they need this assistance. That is a radical change to current policy. That is about removing security of tenure. The committee recognised that and was very concerned about the way this change was imposed without any real analysis of the consequences. As I said, that was the reason the first recommendation was accompanied by a requirement that the government undertake a comprehensive assessment of people likely to be affected and that that issue be brought back here for debate.

I also notice that the government claims again that this policy change will not impact on existing tenants. However, on the second page, the response says:

That is a very clear statement. The minister might like to respond if he thinks it means something other than what everybody else interprets it to mean, which is that anybody who has a new housing arrangement through transport or whatever will be under the new set of criteria. A letter dated 5 December sent out by the new CEO of the department, Bob Hutchison, states:

Anybody who moves - and there are many reasons people would want to move - will be penalised immediately. This is clearly a disincentive for anybody to move. How is this in the interest of tenants who may wish to move for good social capital reasons? How is this in Housing's interest, when they are trying to ensure responsible and efficient use of housing stock? This is a major disincentive. It has been interpreted that way by anyone observing the whole reform agenda, particularly more recent statements which contradict initial statements by the government.

The recent communication contradicts what the committee was told, but even what the committee was told contradicted itself. According to government statements as recorded in the select committee report on page 21, existing tenants will retain existing tenant status in certain circumstances - for example, if ACT Housing requests a transfer because the current dwelling is underutilised. But of course we already know that under

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