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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2003 Week 12 Hansard (20 November) . . Page.. 4400 ..

MRS BURKE (continuing):

It will take courage, and it will take creative and innovative thinking outside the square to meet the key points of the strategy outlined on page 4 of the document. It details it there. I will leave that for members to read. I do not need to go through that. I might just go through page by page and pick up some of the points. On page 5 of the strategy the government commits to the expansion of the community housing sector, allocating capital funding in the 2003-04 budget to support the growth of the sector.

I have some queries about what is happening to the community housing funding. I am not sure if the recent process fell over. Perhaps the minister can fill me in with some information in regard to 2002-03 funding and what is happening with the funding now for community housing. My information tells me that the process fell over and there may be as much as $6 million sitting there doing nothing. The minister may like to refute that comment, or otherwise. The report goes on to say:

Community housing presents a housing option which is complementary to public housing, in that it offers a higher level of tenant participation in management while also providing another avenue through which the diverse needs of individuals can be met.

In my short time in this Assembly, I have been looking at the difference in operation between community housing and ACT Housing, and I am not saying that one is better than the other-one seems more cumbersome than the other to operate. But from the statement in the report about meeting the diverse needs of individuals, it seems community housing offers a really big involvement of the tenant-the client. That is very important, and it is a model that should be looked at more in Housing. Maybe the minister has some good comments on that as well.

However, the report-in my mind; this is where I have a challenge-seems to slightly contradict itself when it gets to page 12 and talks of community housing being "a potential threat to the viability of the public housing system". The report alludes to removing resources and funding from public housing over to the community housing sector. It seems to be a grey area. I am not quite sure whether the minister wants to abolish community housing, whether he would like community housing back in the controlled jurisdiction of ACT Housing or whether it serves a useful purpose in the community. I am fully convinced that it does. I would like his comments on that.

I would have thought that the model used in community housing was an excellent model, some aspects of which might be taken through public housing-for example, greater client participation for better outcomes. Surely, this is a positive approach. The more we get our ACT Housing tenants involved in where they want to live and how they want to live, the more standards will be raised and people will lift themselves to them.

If people can choose the colour scheme for their walls and their blinds-I know it is not always possible, Minister, but we can incrementally move to that-I am sure they will take more pride in the way they look after their homes. Maybe we can eliminate the small number of cases that, disappointingly, we have of houses being trashed. I would like to talk more on that.

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