Page 781 - Week 04 - Tuesday, 1 May 2007
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With regard to the committee’s comments on possible impact on property rights, which is something I know that you, Mr Temporary Deputy Speaker, raised with us before, the government sought legal advice from the Government Solicitor’s Office. It differed from the opinion expressed by the committee. In short, the GSO advice says that no such rights exist and the bill does not, in and of itself, affect any property rights. However, in order to ensure clarity in relation to transitional provisions, particularly for those persons who may have uncompleted appeals before the Administrative Appeals Tribunal, government amendments have been drafted to address the rights and liabilities issues raised in the committee’s report.
Before I conclude my remarks, I make some brief comments about the document circulated to members by the ACT Council of Social Service in relation to the bill. I believe it is important to put on the public record the facts relating to this legislation. Despite the council’s claims, as I indicated earlier, there has been a great deal of community consultation on housing policy issues in the ACT since I became minister. The policy underpinning this bill has been the subject of discussions and debate with over 680 people in the territory through the housing summit, the consumer forum and the ministerial housing advisory forums conducted last year.
These discussions were supported by over 250 pages of information, research and analysis prepared by my department to facilitate broad community input. It is ridiculous for the council to suggest that there is no strategic framework for housing in the ACT—something parroted by Dr Foskey—when it is clear that our policy position is based on the fundamental commonwealth-state housing agreement objective to provide “appropriate, affordable and secure housing assistance for those who most need it, for the duration of their need”.
The government’s extensive public housing reform process over the past few years has clearly been focused strongly on those most in need. It is our responsibility, and we are committed to follow through on it. The changes announced in April this year build on those earlier reforms and seek to implement our key goal of aiming to house those most in need and as quickly as possible.
With regard to the council’s concern about the introduction of a definition of “housing assistance” possibly limiting the power of the commissioner or impacting on my ability to respond to special cases, this is not an issue. There is no material difference between section 8 (1) (d) of the old act and clause 11 (1) (b) of this bill. In special circumstances the minister also retains the right under clause 16 of this bill to give the commissioner directions on the exercise of her functions. These directions must be followed.
It is surprising that the council has chosen to express concern about the inclusion of eligibility criteria as a mandatory element of housing assistance programs. The government believes there are some fundamental components of all housing assistance programs, and these have been included in the bill: eligibility criteria, the type of assistance to be provided and the mechanism for review of decisions.
The council’s suggestion that the introduction of eligibility criteria means that there will never be universally accessible housing programs is as spurious as it is ridiculous. Without eligibility criteria we would not, for instance, be able to restrict access to
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