Page 152 - Week 01 - Wednesday, 10 February 2010
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areas that tend to have lower land values. I suggest that those opposite look at a map of Australia—
Mr Coe: Address the recurrent stuff, Joy.
MADAM DEPUTY SPEAKER: Mr Coe!
MS BURCH: based on childcare and housing and just look at the obvious comparisons. The indicative cost of capital also includes an amount for the value of the dwelling. Here in the ACT the value of $8,317 is only slightly higher than the national average of $7,687, and in part reflects—
Mr Coe: Slightly?
MS BURCH: It is eight per cent, Mr Coe, but maybe it is a bit complicated for you as well. We should be applauding our results. I would like to remind those opposite in the Assembly that when the Liberals were last in government they ripped out and sold 1,000 houses from our public housing stock. Given that our public housing stock is allocated to those in need, those most vulnerable in our community, that are at risk of homelessness and disadvantage, the thought of ripping out 1,000 properties just beggars belief. It beggars belief that they could come in here and think that we do not perform with our serious investment in public housing.
MR COE (Ginninderra) (11.57): It is disappointing again that the Canberra Liberals have had to highlight more inefficiencies with the ACT government’s management of our city. My particular interest, of course, with regard to the report is public housing. In the ACT we have got a number of issues in public housing which need to be addressed and a number of issues in public housing that have been highlighted in the report by the Productivity Commission. Despite the fact that we have higher costs than any other jurisdiction apart from the Northern Territory, even though this government calls it “investment”, we still have major problems with maintenance, major problems with antisocial behaviour, major problems in determining the future of multi-unit complexes and major problems with our relationship with community housing providers.
The key figure that I am going to be addressing today is one that Ms Burch pretty much skipped over, and that is the net recurrent cost of managing housing in the territory. The important figure here is the $7,736 per dwelling. She talked about capital cost, she talked about land value, she talked about having houses in metropolitan areas. That is all very well. But the recurrent cost is the cost that it takes for the department to manage each house. Here it is $7,736, higher than any state in Australia.
Mrs Dunne: We don’t have any rural and remote areas to drive up that cost.
MR COE: We do not have rural and regional areas that we have to subsidise. We do not have areas thousands of kilometres from our state capital, from our state housing headquarters, to subsidise. No, they are all within a 20-minute or half-an-hour drive, with perhaps the exception of Uriarra estate. Yet we still have the highest net
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