Page 1352 - Week 05 - Wednesday, 6 May 2015
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From a social policy perspective, salt and peppering has been the backbone of addressing social outcomes and addressing disadvantage. It has helped us to encourage people to have aspirations and become home owners for the first time. It has helped people to have the stability they need to move on and move forward. Salt and peppering has been built into the fabric of our community. It means better integration with public transport and community facilities.
Currently, our biggest stocks of public housing are in the inner north and inner south, which reflects the development that took place 50 or 60 years ago. Over the decades since, there has been an approach to get public housing into the other regions of the city, including Belconnen, Tuggeranong, Woden and Weston Creek, and Gungahlin, to ensure public housing is integrated into our newer suburbs. This is a good thing. As part of the government’s public housing renewal program, there is an opportunity to further invest in public housing and give further effect to salt and peppering. It is still important to have properties in the inner south and inner north and along major transport corridors, but salt and peppering will help avoid larger concentrations of disadvantage, which is in everyone’s interests.
Through our public housing renewal program, the ACT government will build over 1,000 modern homes. One part of this plan is for 14 new dwellings in the suburb of Nicholls. The new housing development in Nicholls will be for supportive housing for ageing tenants and for those with a disability. The site in Nicholls is well suited for supportive housing as it is close to the Nicholls shops and the bus service on Kelleway Avenue. The housing will be designed and built to meet the needs of the tenants—I reiterate, for those that are ageing tenants or those with a disability—and in a way that helps the government deliver the services they need, services like meals on wheels and support from community health and social services.
The public housing renewal task force have worked hard to keep the community informed about this development and have reached out to make sure every resident in the community has the information they need. They have consulted residents via a letter on 4 February 2015, another letter to the Gungahlin Community Council on 4 February 2015, a presentation to the Gungahlin Community Council on 11 March and a public meeting just this week, on 4 May, at the Gungahlin library. I am told that the Planning and Land Authority has extended the current period of a development application to the end of this week to make sure any member of the Nicholls community who would like to have a say on this development has the chance to contribute.
Unfortunately, it does appear that some members of the Nicholls community have somehow found some incorrect definitions of supportive housing. Let me reassure the Nicholls community that this proposed development is for supportive housing for elderly people and for people with a disability. This type of housing provides enormous benefit to the people who live in it. Of course, the government will continue to work with local communities to ensure that the design and location of housing are appropriate to individual locations, as my motion notes. That consultation must be based on facts. If the facts are not known, I and ACT ministers will provide those facts. Consultation has been important, and the Nicholls development has
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