Page 4244 - Week 13 - Wednesday, 16 November 2005
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Indeed, Mr Hargreaves alluded to Western Australia. It has made some very progressive moves forward that I do not believe are unduly impacting upon people in that state, as has New South Wales. If we are not careful, we will continue to get a flood of people putting further pressure on our waiting lists. As has been clearly identified at recent Shelter meetings, it is starting to happen now. The minister must act now. The minister must take action to stop our waiting list ballooning out any further. I commend the motion to the Assembly and look forward to support for it.
DR FOSKEY (Molonglo) (4.52): For a good part of Mrs Burke’s speech I really felt that she had moved along on this issue. I am pleased that she has been reading the federal government’s sustainable cities report because it might mean that she has some commitment to increasing the environmental efficiency of houses generally and public housing especially. I look forward to her future support on motions I put to this house on that topic.
I believe I only have time to address the first part of Mrs Burke’s motion, which argues that people in public housing ought to be assisted and encouraged into the private rental market or home ownership. In most of the western world government housing is not welfare housing. Mrs Burke’s speech indicated that she has come around a lot more to the idea of building communities when we build houses. But perhaps for the Labor members here rather than the Liberal members, for whom it appears the notion of a communitarian society is either offensive or irrelevant, it is worth emphasising the Australia-wide post-war housing project where greater government responsibility for housing delivered undeniable benefits for poor and working Australians.
We know Canberra would not exist if it were not for the great investment the government put into housing in the 1920s and the 1970s. This was of course necessary to lure people to the limestone plains, which was not an attractive place for people whose families were in Melbourne or Sydney. This is not a city that has grown up with charitable housing trusts and low-cost private accommodation, housing people on fairly limited means; it has always been a public housing city and government housing on a large scale has always been important.
I would like to make it clear that the Greens support the continued presence of government and social housing across the city. The fact that public housing exists in all areas is one of the strengths of the ACT. From the very beginning, Canberra was designed to be an egalitarian city. There are a number of suburbs, including Hawker, where it was agreed not to put public housing. Apparently we needed our little elite segments. This means children from a range of socioeconomic backgrounds attend the same local school. I hope this is largely true and that people still use their local primary school.
Rich and poor people do their shopping together at the local shops, and that contributes to a healthy democracy. Concentrating government housing—or, more disastrously, welfare housing—into areas where the land is cheaper would have damaging social and political consequences. At the moment, to see that we only have to look at what is happening in suburbs of Paris, where immigrant groups have been concentrated together because those are the only areas where they can afford housing. We must not let that happen here.
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