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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2001 Week 5 Hansard (1 May) . . Page.. 1300 ..

MR STEFANIAK (continuing):

Whilst we have the highest participation rate of any city or state or territory in the country, nationally the number of people walking has dropped a bit in the last couple of years. It is important to encourage everyone to get out there and be physically active. The easiest way is simply to go for a good walk. Whilst we have some excellent cyclepaths, I think we need more. My colleague Mr Smyth launched a pilot project entitled the Canberra community walking path project as part of the social capital initiatives, to encourage greater activity and people undertaking moderate physical activity such as walking.

Burnie Court

MR WOOD: I want to follow up Kerrie Tucker's question about Burnie Court. I think Mr Moore said that 30 to 40 per cent might be public housing.

Mr Moore: Twenty to 30, I said.

MR WOOD: Could you be more precise? You have allocated one block in that area for older persons units. When you talk about public housing, do you include that in it, as I guess you would? What percentage of the remaining four blocks that are not older persons units is likely to be public housing?

MR MOORE: Thank you, Mr Wood, for the question. I was giving a generic answer. In the public housing section there will be some 25 older persons units. We plan to retain a block of land at the Lutheran church end of Burnie Court to make sure we look after aged persons in this redevelopment. We propose to go to auction for the other four sections. We are then going to spot purchase those ones. I gave as a general indication 20 to 30 per cent.

Mr Wood: In those other four?

MR MOORE: No. I am giving as a general indication 20 to 30 per cent. We have not made specific decisions of the type you are asking about in your question. We will have to make an assessment of the costs of those units and how they compare to other units and other homes around them and purchase according to that. I am giving simply a broad indication, Mr Wood, of the sorts of levels that I think are appropriate for the area.

It is worth understanding that, if you take Burnie Court out of Lyons, Housing still owns something like 19 per cent of Lyons. We have a fairly intense presence in that area, and appropriately so. We should be making sure that our housing is fairly close to the city centres if we can.

MR WOOD: I will ask a supplementary question which is probably more of a statement. Does it not seem to you that there will be very little public housing other than those older persons units.

MR MOORE: I think it is worth remembering that the ACT carries in the order of 12 per cent of our properties as public housing. Compared to the Australian average of around 5 per cent, this is a very high level of public housing. When you take into account the level of income across the ACT, then you recognise that in socio-economic terms that is a very high percentage.

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