Page 2765 - Week 08 - Thursday, 24 August 2006
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believe. She talked about amassing rent. Heavens! Eighty six per cent of tenants in public housing are receiving a rebate. That sounds to me like an amassing amount going out, not an amassing amount of rent. She talks about the massive number of market renters. I think we get about $18 million or $19 million of return for that. That goes to cross-subsidise those people who cannot afford it. Mrs Burke would have us eliminate the market renters, but she does not tell us where we are going to get the $19 million from. I do not know where we are going to get it from.
It is also important to note that, whilst there are those percentages, a lot of the people in the rebate area are right on the cusp of it all. We sell government homes to people on the cusp and otherwise. She says we have not done anything about debt. She has only quoted half of the figures I gave her. She said it is now at $2.127 million. I think that was the figure. It is in that order, anyway. In fact, it has gone down to $1.96 million, but she did not tell us about that.
Mrs Burke also said, “What about the results from the housing forum?” There is stuff on the web about that. I can also advise the chamber that a cabinet submission which is almost complete will go forward to talk about the government’s policy as a result of that forum. In terms of the forum, I can tell the chamber that I have had conversations with housing providers, developers, finance institutions and people who are paying rent.
What are the results, Mr Temporary Deputy Speaker? Mrs Burke may very well have had people come to her and say that nothing has come out of the housing forum. I do not doubt that for a moment. It just means that those people are not aware of what has gone on. I can assure the house right now that I have had conversations with banking institutions around shared equity schemes. I have had conversations with developers about low-cost affordable housing pitched at around the $250,000, $260,000 or $270,000 mark. To say that nothing has happened is not quite right.
Dr Foskey’s usual diatribe here is: “You are not giving enough money out to people. You are not listening to people. You are really giving them a hard time and making them cry a lot.” The reduction to community housing providers was the overmatching funds which are over and above those required under the commonwealth-state housing agreement. This government has been as much as 20 per cent over in the national benchmark expenditures in some areas—some as low as six per cent and some as high as 70 per cent.
The value of the overmatching funds for housing was $450,000. That was going out to providers and to peak bodies. It could not continue. It had to go—and it went. It was not just “goodbye; you have had it”. We have had conversations with these providers and the peak bodies. We are working with them. We have transitional funding of about $250,000 to work our way through the changes in administrative systems. If people do not have access to computers or they do not have access to training, Housing ACT will assist them in that process.
As I alluded to earlier, there is one organisation out there that has an administrative percentage of 30 per cent of costs. Nobody in their right mind would agree that 30 per cent is a reasonable figure. One dollar in every three going out of the government into this organisation was going on administrative support and management systems. That is ludicrous. We are requiring at least a drop to six per cent or thereabouts. It was
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