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

Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2003 Week 5 Hansard (7 May) . . Page.. 1623 ..

MR STEFANIAK (continuing):

houses, of very difficult tenants making life a misery for people around them, be they people in the private sector owning their own homes or privately renting, or other public housing tenants. You would see that especially in flat complexes.

I do recall that it was often very difficult to do too much. We would try conflict resolution, but that works only if both sides are prepared to go into it wholeheartedly. If one side is totally unprepared and unwilling to do that, you will get nowhere. Sometimes the problem would solve itself because some of these people who were an absolute nuisance or worse than that to their neighbours would also be bad rent payers and they would end up being evicted for the non-payment of rent and the problem would go away as far as the neighbours were concerned. But on occasions that was not the case.

In the 12 months or so that I was the shadow housing minister I noticed, and it concerned me greatly, that a number of Housing tenants who were having problems with their immediate neighbours who were also Housing tenants were prepared, if need be, to go to the tribunal to give evidence on behalf of the Housing Trust and the department if the department was seeking an eviction. I had never seen that before. It was always very difficult to get someone to go and give evidence against a neighbour who was causing them problems because they were scared or just did not want to get involved, which was quite understandable and quite common. But the number of people who are now prepared to do that regardless of the consequences, and some of them do it with some fear, is really quite disturbing.

I was pleased to hear the minister say today that on occasions the department will seek as a last resort to evict people from public housing. I accept that it is not easy to do that, but that is their duty. It is sad, but they do need to do that. If word gets around that this is being done and being done successfully, that will have a salutary effect on some people who might well make the lives of others a misery. That is something the department does need to do. I know that sometimes officers of the department are reluctant to do so, but it is something that they have to do to ensure that the rights and obligations of other tenants are upheld and, indeed, enforced in relation to the tenancy agreements.

Mr Wood said something about public stereotyping by Mrs Burke. I do not think Mrs Burke was doing so; far from it. Mrs Burke has a very compassionate rapport with the problems faced by many Housing tenants who come to see her. In her short time back in the Assembly she has been a tireless worker on behalf of what she regards very much as her constituency, the 11,500 or so Housing Trust places in the ACT and the people who occupy those places. She works tirelessly on behalf of those constituents, sometimes to the annoyance of the minister, but that is her job and she would be the last person who would wish publicly to stereotype anyone. I do not think that in my time in this Assembly, certainly since 1994, there has been anyone here who would want to go down the path of stereotyping public housing tenants.

Mr Wood: You never did.

MR STEFANIAK: I cannot think of anyone who has, Mr Wood. I think that we can be all quite proud of that, because it is quite wrong to do that. Nevertheless, there will be, unfortunately, in any community, especially in the large flat complexes, some

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