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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2003 Week 13 Hansard (26 November) . . Page.. 4653 ..

MS TUCKER (continuing):

dealing with this underlying problem of exclusion of marginalised people and inequities, and then we will see improvements.

These supports, and more importantly perhaps, community development work are actually facilitated by the concentrations of people. The concentrations we have in the ACT are a lot smaller than the enormous complexes in Melbourne, for instance. It is smaller than the isolated public housing community in Tasmania, which has been through a stunning social transformation, with resources provided for community-generated community development.

I think it is difficult to find exactly similar models interstate, but there are useful success stories. They involve tenant participation, support, activation. Community development, as work, is supported by a lot of critical thinking and learning. The multi-unit complexes, when they have community rooms, provide an opportunity for some of that work to occur, for people to make friends, build connections and bridges, but that does depend on supports being in place.

With this kind of work in place and growing, through the community linkages program and the associated grants program-although some excellent proposals have been hampered by, of all things, the insurance crisis-and through the improvements announced recently by government, it is really hard to accept the government's decision to walk away from Currong.

The Multi-unit property plan produced in June 2000 by Ecumenical Housing Inc for ACT Housing recommended an extension and redevelopment which would deal with the fire safety, the lifts and the water-leaking problems associated with the window walls. They summarised their position on Currong flats at page 67:

Given the excellent location of the site, the potential for successful extension and upgrade, and the difficulties of tenant relocation, the option of retaining the site has been chosen and is considered a sound financial decision.

The consultants have identified a solution for Currong apartments that addresses the current major limitations of the building. The proposed option was developed based on two key assumptions-that ACT Housing would have major difficulty permanently relocating the tenants; and, secondly, that all alternative options to the one proposed would result in significant and unacceptable loss of stock and were financially unsound. They recommended also that ACT Housing consider the assumptions, the proposed option and the outcomes carefully and critically, noting, among other things:

ACT Housing may be prepared to increase the waiting time for new applicants in order to facilitate permanent relocation of tenants from Currong Apartments.

My motion today challenges the government to show that they have not decided to accept an increase in waiting times for applicants. It would not only be new applicants affected, it would also be current applicants on the list who are already facing long waits, even when they have been assessed as being in priority need, that is, they are homeless.

We all know this. No-one likes it. It makes additional, unacceptable impacts on the people who are in need, which potentially deepens their personal problems and resulting social problems. So I am asking this Assembly to ask the government to reconsider.

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