Page 4481 - Week 12 - Wednesday, 14 October 2009
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MR HARGREAVES (Brindabella—Minister for Disability and Housing, Minister for Ageing, Minister for Multicultural Affairs, Minister for Industrial Relations and Minister for Corrections) (4.14): The government will be opposing half of the motion moved by the Greens. The government will support paragraphs (1)(a), (1)(b) and (1)(c) of the motion. The government will be opposing the second part of the motion, as I am concerned that it calls on the ACT government to commission a body of work that may be duplicating what is already being carried out by the commonwealth and the ACT government.
Furthermore, the second part of the motion asks us to bring forward an enormous amount of detailed financial work on community housing for tabling in the Assembly in November, which is a completely impossible time frame within which to complete such an enormous national comparison. That is why I now formally move the amendment circulated in my name:
Omit all words after paragraph (1)(c), substitute:
“(d) that the Commonwealth Government has commissioned KPMG in 2009 to provide strategic advice on the viability and sustainability of the community housing sector in Australia and to assess prospects for growth;
(e) that the ACT Government will circulate the terms of reference of the project once permission for its publication has been received from KPMG and the Commonwealth;
(f) that the ACT Government will table the KPMG report upon receipt; and
(g) that the work undertaken by KPMG will inform further policy formulation with regards to community housing and it is noted that this will avoid a duplication of both effort and cost.”.
The basic premise of this Greens motion is that the government have dropped the ball on community and affordable housing, which could not be further from the truth. It certainly seems that, every few months or so, the Greens and the Liberal opposition trawl through their lists of issues and drag this one up again and again. I can assure this Assembly that we are already participating in national projects to evaluate community housing. In fact, under the auspices of the Housing Ministers Conference, the ACT is involved in detailed work relating to community housing, including strategies to develop the not-for-profit sector, such as reform measures to improve accountability. This gives us the opportunity to have a really good look at the whole national scene. It will give us access to national analysis by the Australian government and data from the states and territories which we might not otherwise have access to.
As one of the key housing reforms required under the national affordable housing agreement, the ACT government are moving towards a common waiting list for both community and public housing. We have made substantial progress towards this, working in partnership with providers. Once achieved, the shared waiting list will provide significant assistance to community housing providers in the management of their waiting lists. This will create efficiencies and further enable quality services to
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