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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2003 Week 3 Hansard (12 March) . . Page.. 981 ..

MR WOOD (continuing):

talked about $700 up front and yet she says the rent was in advance. That does not compute; it does not work out. Yes, we do like people to be two weeks in advance and, yes, if they moved from one property to another because they had been burnt out we would, in the first instance, ask, "Have you got a fortnight in advance?"If they said no, we would say, "Okay, we are not going to push that."It is a fair question to ask but we would not push.

I do not understand the only case that Mrs Burke has put to us. If the people were in advance, they would not be asked for $700. I do not know where the $700 comes from, and neither do you, Mrs Burke. You did not say where the house is located. I think we have a couple of properties in good spots-Bannister Gardens or somewhere. Houses in a couple of nice little cul-de-sacs in Griffith might approach that sort of rent if the person renting was on a very high income. There are no properties on the list I have seen that would attract a rent of $350. So I do not know where that comes from.

I say again that if the people you referred to were two weeks in advance, they do not have a problem. I have not checked with my office since you spoke but, although we did say to come and talk to us, I am not aware that my office was approached on this matter. So I really do think you have fallen down on substantiating your case.

I think members are accustomed to ringing the office and getting very good service. Sometimes there might be disagreements and people might think that Housing could be more generous or something, but in general I think there is good cooperation, as there was when I was in opposition, between the Housing officer in my office and members' offices. So I do not think there is any real justification to take this course of action. The case has not been proved. As I pointed out, significant assistance has been given.

If we want to assist people-and I do not know how we would do it-we ought look at assisting private housing tenants. My quick thinking tells me-and I worked this out over a few days-that probably as many private tenants as public tenants lost their homes. So let us say that around about 80 private tenants lost their homes. I bet there is not one of them paying less rent; and more than half of our tenants are paying less rent. So that is where there should be assistance.

I will say this again in respect of public and private tenants, and I am going to say this about 10 times: no public housing tenant pays more than 25 per cent of their household income in rent, and that is an entitlement that is not available to private tenants. If you read material from the affordable housing taskforce you will know how many of those private tenants are under severe stress. They would all love to pay only 25 per cent.

The motion does not talk about a period of assistance or consider the cost of such an open-ended program; nor does it consider the overall capacity that we have to address the housing requirements of people in need, and that includes natural disaster victims. In fact, I claim that this proposal is discriminatory and I think that is something this Assembly has to think about.

As well as the financial assistance I have already outlined, the rent of those government properties that were destroyed by fire on 18 January ceased at that date and the tenant would not have had to pay rent again until they occupied a new dwelling, and any credit

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