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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2000 Week 12 Hansard (7 December) . . Page.. 3877 ..

MR STANHOPE (continuing):

Where will those people be? They simply do not fit within the government's need categorisation of who will be affected by the change. They simply do not fit within the government's characterisation of what makes up a particular household, family or form of relationship. They will be severely disadvantaged by these new rules; they simply do not fit. It is like the John Howard mindset of the Australian family.

Mr Moore: That is crap, Jon.

MR STANHOPE: Here is the opportunity, Mr Speaker, to apply the new rules in relation to the warning of other members; your first opportunity.

MR SPEAKER: I was talking to Mr Wood about something.

MR STANHOPE: What a pity. So was Mr Moore.

MR SPEAKER: He was not interjecting.

MR STANHOPE: He was.

MR SPEAKER: Loudly.

MR STANHOPE: Oh, the guidelines and the criteria go to the loudness of the interjection, do they, Mr Speaker? Is that a part of the new criteria?

MR SPEAKER: Not really.

MR STANHOPE: I was just concluding - over and above Mr Moore's constant interjections, I might say - that the government simply has not understood the range of relationships that do apply and the extent to which these new rules will severely disadvantage a whole category of tenant; there is no doubt about that.

Ms Tucker's amendment should be supported. It is not as if the amendment actually puts off forever the opportunity for the government to implement those changes that are acceptable. It simply asks the government to go away and have a rethink about a number of responses that are simply unacceptable to the Assembly, unacceptable as reflected through the select committee's report and unacceptable as represented through the very strong views of the Assembly. That is all the amendment does. The dire consequences that the minister predicts as a result of the passage of Ms Tucker's amendment are simple nonsense, simple humbug; that is what they are.

MS TUCKER (5.10): I wish to speak to Mr Moore's amendment and respond to some of the points that were raised. Mr Moore claimed on several occasions that what was being asked for here was going to create a total crisis for the people in urgent need of housing in the ACT. He said that we are suggesting that we would allow people on a healthy income to sit in their public houses for life, that that was somehow an incredibly unjust and undesirable situation and that that is what we are going to see.

I need to remind Mr Moore that the committee was told by the government that the average length of tenancy in public housing is currently between four and five years. The median duration of tenancies is 765 days; that is, half the tenancies last for less than

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