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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2003 Week 12 Hansard (20 November) . . Page.. 4445 ..

MR WOOD (continuing):

I think that the contradiction Mrs Burke had in mind-it is probably there in a measure-was that the continued transfer of ACT Housing assets to Community Housing Canberra was reducing ACT Housing's asset stock. That substantial passing over of assets will not continue under the new process for Community Housing Canberra and I do not think that tension will be there between the two of them. We lump ACT Housing, public housing and community housing into the broad social housing sector and we do like to encourage that social housing sector. We have provided modest amounts-$3 million in each of the last two years-to encourage community housing, and there may be more in the future as we work through these issues.

I think it was Mrs Burke-maybe it was Ms Tucker-who said that things had been slow to move. Part of that slowness was due to the fact that the bodies that had been successful in getting funds then had for the most part to get land to do something with it, which takes some time to organise. We have kicked off this year's process a lot faster and I think that we will get through the issues rather more quickly. Certainly, I hope that we will do so. I can see the apparent contradiction. I think that that has been settled. Community housing is an adjunct, a support, to public housing in the social housing sector.

Mrs Burke had a deal to say, understandably, about difficulties with allocations and transfers and a one size fits all policy. In question time she explained how difficult that can be when she referred to the transfer of people to Florey. I know that there is no easy answer. We simply do not have the range of stock to be able to fit people in as we would like. We never will, I suppose. We have a continuing approach of trying to maintain stock. We have to get old stock done up or do something with it. I am on a program of not disposing of it particularly and there is going to be a continuing struggle there for me simply to find enough money to provide the sort of housing that we think is ideal for this day and age. It is not going to be easy to do that.

There was comment that there are people in homes larger than they need. We encourage people to move, but we do not force them. Sometimes we say to someone in a four-bedroom house, "There is a beaut little new older persons' unit down the road. Would you like to go there?"I think that that is the way we can move people There are people who have lived for 30 or 40 years in houses in Yarralumla and other places that are now bigger than they need, but we are not going to say to them that it is time for them to go.

Mrs Burke: I wasn't meaning that.

MR WOOD: I know that you were not suggesting that. We guarantee them security of tenure and maybe encourage them to move. When I was in opposition I was able on a couple of occasions to negotiate a move along. I remember one house in Ainslie which was in very poor condition and the people in it did not want to go, but they were only too happy to go when they saw a better spot, a newer spot, just up the road that they could manage.

I turn to the reference to the availability of housing in locations in which people actually want to live. That comes back to the other issue of having enough resources to get enough spots. Interestingly, some of the longer waiting lists are for the more distant

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