Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . .

Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2001 Week 7 Hansard (19 June) . . Page.. 2105 ..

MR WOOD (continuing):

even a minute one, as some places put in, where a resident could sit outside and enjoy the sun or on a summer evening enjoy the cool breeze. We have tried to convince our builders in this town to build solar efficient properties, and it simply has not happened on this occasion. It is a sadly missed opportunity.

The previous building would have been constructed in the 60s, and I have to say it was a better design. It was not anything great and it had many failings too, but in its new state I believe it would be better than this one now. It is particularly disturbing, as it has been presented to the ACT community, that this replacement, City Edge, seems to have been promoted as some sort of upmarket place to live in. It is certainly in a very good location-close to Civic in an inner suburb-but for the promotion it has received I think it is a sad disappointment. I am going to try to arrange with Community Housing Canberra to have a walk through it to see if there is any improvement, compared to the external visage, once one steps inside. But it has missed the opportunity to open itself up to the sun.

Not so long ago Mr Moore indicated that no more properties were being passed over to Canberra Community Housing pending the consideration of the review. Some properties might have gone because of the intense pressure for that because of promises that were made. Perhaps we will hear where that review is at when the minister responds.

Mr Moore and I have exchanged comments about waiting lists at various times across this chamber. He asserts, of course, that things are better than they might have been. I know there are pressures, I know there are people waiting and I do not expect that everybody will get instant gratification. I know that is simply not possible. But there are problems when a lady who has been told she is at the very top of the list for early allocation 1, three months later still has not got it. Now she is back in touch with the department and maybe something will work out. Part of that problem may have been insufficient communication between housing people and the applicant.

More serious problems are revealed on waiting lists when we look at people exiting SAAP accommodation. That is emergency accommodation, generally for people who have no home. Ideally, they should be able to move from only SAAP accommodation into a combination, which is usually a government house. But many of these people wait for three months or more. Many of them move from one SAAP accommodator to another, as they try to keep that roof over their head.

It makes it quite clear that there are remaining significant problems attached to those waiting lists, problems exacerbated by the tightness and the expense of housing in the private sector. I want to thank ACT Housing for some quick responses in more recent times. It being winter, I have had a couple of occasions to make approaches, through the minister's office, for maintenance work on heaters that are not functioning. I have to say that, in the instances I made that approach, they have been attended to instantly-as we would hope, given the weather we have had in the last few days.

My final point on housing matters is about the "collateral damage"-that is a good word these days, isn't it?-being done as the government moves tenants, as they should be doing, out of Burnie Court. I do not yet think that the ACT government is paying sufficient attention to the means of dealing with the number-relatively few, but still problematic-of very difficult tenants. Perhaps they are tenants who have mental health

Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . .