Page 1761 - Week 06 - Wednesday, 4 May 2005
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Services) (12.13): The government will not be supporting Dr Foskey’s motion as it stands. I will move a series of amendments a little later, but in the meantime I would like to address some of the things Dr Foskey has said. I am grateful that she has in fact acknowledged that the government has moved some way towards addressing the issue. The grudging acceptance of some people in the public arena about the extent to which the government has moved towards addressing affordable housing is sometimes a disappointment to me. I do believe that we should stop using people’s housing difficulties, which are often at the core of their social dysfunction, for political point scoring. I think it is just a bit disgusting, quite frankly.
Dr Foskey talked about the chronic lack of housing options. We know that some time ago that was probably true. And then the Stanhope Labor government got elected. We started to put some money in; we started to put some more thought into it. We revitalised the department that had responsibility for housing and, under Mr Wood’s stewardship, changed the face of the provision of affordable and public housing in this town.
I remind members of debates that have gone on in this place where I have actually indicated exactly what is going on. I will just mention a couple of them; there were quite a few. We have got the good old commercial rental market. People can go out and buy themselves a house if they have got the money: those are two options. Then there is public housing. People can rent public housing; they can rent at market rents—although I would not take the position, of course, of Mrs Burke, who would have us boot out from government properties all of the people who are paying market rent.
Mrs Burke: That’s not true, and you know it.
MR HARGREAVES: That is what press releases say, and she has uttered that over the illustrious airwaves of 2CC, that magnificent radio station. She has actually said on a number of occasions, “We should be encouraging them,” and that is code. It is Mr Stefaniak’s and Mr Mulcahy’s way of encouraging people not to commit murder any more. It is a good one: “Capital punishment’s a great encouragement in my view.” But Mrs Burke says, “No, we should be encouraging these people who pay market rents, if their income is of such a level that they do not get a subsidy, to move on and release those properties for people who need assistance.” There is a bit of sense in that, I suppose. Let us suggest, for example, that there are some market renters in the public housing stock in, let us say—I will just pick a suburb at random—Red Hill. We could realise that property and buy some more. That would be a good idea. What about Wanniassa? We could do that; there might be some properties there. How about Yarralumla? We could realise that one, too, I suppose. But I say to you that one of the cornerstones of this government’s commitment is security of tenure and we are not about to do that.
There is another option—community housing—that is all about transitioning. Then we have got the Canberra Emergency Accommodation Service for people who are in real strife. TAS Housing is involved. A number of other people are involved. We know we work closely with Shelter. The very people whom Dr Foskey wants to have abandon their place of camping out in City West—we are going to pick those people up, dastardly government that we are, and rescue them, against their will, it would appear. They do not want to stop sleeping rough there.
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