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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2003 Week 1 Hansard (20 February) . . Page.. 333 ..

MRS BURKE (continuing):

Mr Speaker, although I was not a member when the Labor government brought down its budget last year, I have read the pages relevant to Housing. I have spoken to many tenants, landlords and stakeholders, and have received many letters and emails and so forth from the public housing sector. The bottom line is that we must do more with regard to public housing-and we all know this.

We must listen to what the community is telling us. The shadow Minister for Housing, Bill Stefaniak, expressed his grave disappointment over the Labor government's lack of funding to assist the homeless in the ACT. I know he has had much to do with Barry Williams of the Lone Fathers Association on this very matter-and I was also involved. In terms of Housing, it was an uninspiring budget. I am sorry to have to say that. It claimed an increase of over $3.5 million over the previous year, but was severely lacking in initiatives.

Mr Speaker, rents have gone up by $6.2 million. The government funding for ACT Housing has gone down $3.1 million from last year. In Labor's budget, there was a paltry $125,000 allocated to assist people with short-term emergency accommodation needs. This is becoming an increasingly desperate area. From talking to stakeholders and providers, as I have already done in my short time here, the problem is evident. This allocation has obviously done very little to address the chronic problem of homelessness in our community, especially in the area of emergency accommodation.

In the 2001-02 Liberal budget, there was $240,000 specifically for short-term crisis accommodation-this was overnight accommodation-plus $1.5 million allocated for crisis accommodation and management. The truth is, it would seem that the cries of welfare groups for further crisis accommodation fell on deaf Labor ears. This bears out my point that they did not listen.

The government has released the recommendations of the Housing Affordability Task Force. While I am still consuming all of the information in those four documents, I would suggest that the government must act on the recommendations of the report as a matter of urgency.

The opposition is hopeful it will see a lot more for housing in the 2003-04 budget-and I am sure Ms Tucker also wants to see that. We have just lost a large number of our public housing facilities due to the bushfire disaster, as Minister Wood carefully articulated in question time today in this place. We know the desperate needs in this sector.

ACTCOSS pointed out in its budget submission that affordable housing should indeed be a priority for the government. Suggestions like using stamp duty profits to increase public housing should be taken on board. That is a sensible suggestion. For the opposition, the priority areas in public housing include an increase in public housing, an increase in supported public housing, the need for crisis emergency accommodation, and the need for additional men's accommodation.

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