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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2000 Week 12 Hansard (7 December) . . Page.. 3832 ..

MS TUCKER (continuing):

government could not respond to. The government had not done the analysis nearly well enough to convince people in the sector that this was a good initiative.

This is about economic rationalism. The sad thing about economic rationalism is that it is irrational, because it does not take into account the holistic concerns and consequences of focusing on efficiency measures, reducing and minimising social responsibility and saving money, apparently, at the same time. So we end up with a poorly thought out policy position. The committee asked the government to go back and do the work on and bring it here. That is what they did not do.

I will briefly address the other recommendations mentioned in the motion. The second recommendation was about security of tenure for community housing. The same work needs to be done there.

The third recommendation was on segmentation of the waiting list. As the committee pointed out clearly, evidence from other states shows that you do not get any real accommodation for people who are not in the priority areas. The experience interstate is that only category 1 applicants and possibly category 2 applicants are allocated houses. The current system, with two categories - priority and other - at least has a guaranteed proportion of allocations to the non - priority category. At the moment this is 70:30 in favour of priority.

What is the government talking about here? Is it talking about straight income, giving people who do not have the income a good dose of desperate poverty so they will get a job and get more money? Is that the plan? Or is it the welfare agenda? Is it not likely that placing people in this situation, increasing inequity, will lead to more crime and drug problems, et cetera? What is the point of studying how to alleviate poverty when you will not heed the advice that these changes will contribute to disadvantage and poverty?

The question of rental bonds also was ignored by the government. We had strong evidence given to us, particularly by people from the federal department, about the impact on refugees. The government is saying that because of their new structure people will not need a rental bond loan scheme because they will be put into a house. They will have to be put into a house, because they will be a priority. They will not have any other option, because there is no rental bond loan scheme anymore. That is ridiculous. You are saying, "We will not have the rental bond loan scheme. Instead, we will give the people priority status and push them in at the top of the list." The immigration department were very concerned that refugee families would be seriously disadvantaged by the abolition of the rental bond loan scheme.

They have left it with a $20,000 emergency fund. The committee received evidence that this was an inadequate amount of money to deal with those sorts of issues as well. The emergency relief fund, we believe, was a good idea. That can stay, but it should not replace the rental bond loan scheme. (Further extension of time granted.)

In paragraph 3.104 the committee said:

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