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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2004 Week 10 Hansard (Wednesday, 25 August 2004) . . Page.. 4162 ..

I will present some facts. Maintenance costs have blown out. I know that this is something on which Mr Wood does agree. Under this government, there has been a blow-out in maintenance costs. Housing ACT’s maintenance budget is now costing in excess of $40 million a year, probably much more than that. That is something Mr Wood and I have talked about and I know that it is something that Mr Wood is concerned about.

It is my firm belief that the government has not achieved what it set out to achieve in promises it made when it went to a process whereby there would be two companies operating across Canberra. Mr Wood agrees that that is being looked at and I am pleased to hear that he is reviewing that situation. I have raised concerns on that and I hope that they have been taken on board, and those of the tenants, and that they will be heeded.

Let’s look at antisocial behaviour. It was interesting for me to read the policy of the South Australian branch of the Labor Party on the situation in South Australia. Maybe the ACT government will take a leaf out of its book. Under this government in the ACT, antisocial behaviour in public housing has escalated to the point where families across Canberra have been drafting petitions for the Legislative Assembly in the hope that this government will do something.

In some instances, families are being forced out of their homes and people in private dwellings are being forced to sell. I think that the government has obfuscated on this issue. It has been just passing the buck or saying that it cannot do anything and that it is about security of tenure. I appreciate that, but why should the majority of people be suffering at the hands of the minority? I think that it is because the housing minister is being a bit lazy. Mr Wood is taking the easy option of the do nothing approach. I am sure that if the problem were to arise next door to Mr Wood, Mr Stanhope or any other member of the government we would see a different outcome.

This government preaches human rights, but does nothing to protect the rights of the majority of people. In the last year one person was evicted for antisocial behaviour. Meantime, people in our community are suffering, both private residents and public housing residents. For some reason, the government simply refuses to stand up for the majority of people in Canberra. What is the problem? Only this morning I was contacted again by an 81-year-old lady who is being terrorised in her own home. The minister’s office is aware of this matter. Fortunately for her, she is of an age where she is not going to be intimidated by such behaviour. However, it is still not acceptable that the answer to this problem seems to be to suggest to the lady that she move. What absolute nonsense!

An alarming problem that the minister really needs to come to grips with is the churning over and exodus of housing managers. Of course housing managers are churned over and moved around because the job is stressful, but what we have seen here under this government is, at best, a continual and irregular churning over of housing managers and, at worse, an exodus of housing managers due the low morale in Housing ACT.

I know that that is true because I speak to the housing managers. If anyone opposite wants to call me a liar again, they can do so, but they would also be calling the people who tell me about the problems liars. If all of you want to do that, go ahead as I can stand it. I know people inside Housing ACT who are crying out for change because they

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