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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2000 Week 12 Hansard (7 December) . . Page.. 3869 ..

MR MOORE (continuing):

Paragraph (1), omit the paragraph.

Paragraph (2), omit all the words following "3.104".

Mr Deputy Speaker, if members support Ms Tucker's amendment without my amendment, they will make it harder for us to look after the very next family which is in need of support. The government's approach to housing assistance and the delivery of public housing services is a responsible approach, taking into account the needs and interests of both tenants and people on the applicant list. As such, the government has taken account of the select committee's recommendations and the submissions made to the committee. The government agrees with most of what the select committee recommended, as is clearly spelt out in the government's response.

Importantly, the government is committed to providing security of tenure to those people in the ACT community who have an ongoing need for public housing assistance. Where public tenants no longer have a need for housing assistance, the ACT community does expect the government to reallocate rental properties to those people who have a need, the people on the applicant list.

The task of government is to allocate the public housing stock in a manner which provides the greatest benefit to the ACT community. That means allocating public housing to the people who are in greatest need. This need to target those people who are more vulnerable, more likely to be subject to forms of housing discrimination, is at the core of the Commonwealth - State Housing Agreement.

Mr Deputy Speaker, I hope that Ms Tucker is not going to distract Mr Osborne, in that she asked me earlier not to distract him and I respected her request. What is good for the goose is good for the gander, Ms Tucker. Perhaps I got it back to front and should have said that what is good for the gander is good for the goose.

It is also reflected in the Commonwealth's homelessness strategy and the ACT's housing task force report, and we are certainly looking forward to the findings of the poverty task force. People who are homeless, people with mental illness, people with disabilities, our youth, indigenous people, people from different cultural and linguistic backgrounds, and single parent families all have greater degrees of difficulty securing affordable housing. They need our support.

The government and this Assembly cannot ignore the priority needs of these people. The government and this Assembly must ensure that public housing resources are used to address the needs of the community's most vulnerable. We cannot continue to allow a situation to exist where we have two classes of people in our community: those people comfortable in public housing forever and those sitting on the applicant list. There ought not be the haves and the have - nots. We must move on and have a public housing system that targets the people in greatest need.

The reality is that the supply of public rental properties will not increase in such a way as to allow the ACT to provide housing to all tenants for the rest of their life and also to allocate rental properties to people on the applicant list. Ms Tucker, that is what I would like to see, too. It is the ideological position that we be able to do that. Let me explain to

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