Page 3085 - Week 08 - Thursday, 25 June 2009
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I also want to refer again to his comments about the federal stimulus funding. As I understand it, it was always the case that funding would go to the community sector. This is particularly in relation to the second tranche of funding. In fact, the federal minister actually stated that a significant amount of the housing will need to go to the community providers by about 2012, I think was the date. I am a bit surprised again with his comments, because as far as I understood it, that was always to be the case.
I refer to antisocial behaviour. Yes, there are issues, and there are cases where this occurs. But in many cases it is due to people having conditions related to drug and alcohol and mental illness. Often these are untreated and that is why there are issues. I think we need to keep this in mind when we are talking about this issue. We need to be remembering that that is the case with many people. It could be in relation to domestic violence as well. We need to keep that in mind and be a bit more balanced when we talk about those issues.
I make some final comments about Housing ACT’s shared equity scheme. The government website provides a 2007 statement promising such a scheme in 2008. That does not appear to have happened yet. As we know, the Greens have been very supportive of the government in terms of its development of a number of innovative home ownership plans. We think it is very good that we have these schemes on board.
I also mention the land rent scheme. We are pleased that that is now up and running. We hope that is given a chance to succeed. But I would also hope that we would see some progress towards the shared equity scheme in the near future as well.
MR HARGREAVES (Brindabella—Minister for Disability and Housing, Minister for Ageing, Minister for Multicultural Affairs, Minister for Industrial Relations and Minister for Corrections) (10.12): I will address some of the things members have said. Although Mr Coe is not here I am sure he will be listening in because I wanted to address a couple of things that he said.
I wanted to celebrate in a way what I see as being a shift in the attitude of the opposition spokesperson on housing. The attitude of the spokesperson in the last Assembly was quite different from that exhibited by Mr Coe. Whilst we will have some differences—and I think that is fine; it is probably healthy—I think he actually understands a lot more of the intricacies and the difficulties that Housing ACT has and is trying to address along the way. I quite sincerely express my appreciation for that in the Assembly.
I will provide members with an explanation for the delay in the shared equity scheme. When we first floated it, we actually took a couple of models. One was from Western Australia, one from the Northern Territory and I think one might have been from Tasmania. We looked at them and we developed a model. We then took it to the financial sector. There was some interest in a number of institutions but predominantly the big ones said, “We will do it if you give us sole right to have a go at the product.” That was not acceptable to us because it had the smell of low doc loans about it. The last thing in the world we wanted was for people to buy their public housing property and then to find that they could not service the mortgage.
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