Page 2252 - Week 08 - Tuesday, 4 August 2015
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I support the redevelopments being dispersed in different parts of the city in a way that recognises the needs of our tenants who are not a homogenous population. By that I mean they should not be defined by their tenancy arrangements but rather as individuals with individual needs, and I think Minister Berry spoke to this well. Her observation about the fact that the housing list for Housing ACT is the longest in Tuggeranong I think underlines that.
Certainly my experience when I was Minister for Housing before Minister Berry was that when we first moved to have tenants move out of the first of the Dickson towers—it was our first major effort and we took it slowly; we had about 20 tenants there and they went all over Canberra—they asked to go all over Canberra, they asked to go to Woden, they asked to go to Belconnen, they asked to go to a range of places because of family connections or school connections or a host of individual reasons. And I think it is really important to recognise that is the philosophy that is behind these relocations. There is an acknowledgement that we need to do something about places like ABC flats, north of the city, or some of the areas along Northbourne Avenue. They are substandard accommodation. There needs to be change and the important thing is: how do we do that change in a way that is fair to the tenants, meets their needs as well as meeting the bottom-line requirements the government needs to deliver on?
I would hope that Mr Smyth recognises that in this debate, despite his federal colleague Mr Hockey’s views that poor people do not drive much, people are to this government more diverse and unique than such throwaway, stereotypical lines.
As the Assembly would be well aware, I have a passion for public transport and a better, more integrated transport system that will reduce people’s reliance on cars, wherever practicable, and this is very important in this debate. To achieve this it is indeed important to consider the placement of public housing close to public transport and key services but there needs to be a sophistication to this issue in line with my previous comments regarding tenants’ unique needs.
This could see new housing built in areas that are close to group centres and schools but a little further away from town centres. This could see housing being constructed in new suburbs such as Coombs and Wright that do not yet have the full scope of amenity that the older, more established suburbs have. But it is not about pushing people who live in these properties out to the fringes of our city or leaving people vulnerable to social isolation.
Another factor that has come up and that is interesting for public housing tenants is that often single mothers with small children actually want to go to the outer suburbs where the new houses are being built because there is a level of social connection for them, in the fact that there are many other families like that going into those areas—families with young children. Single mothers seeking public housing or single fathers, as would be the case—more often, single mothers—say they actually want to be in some of those new suburbs because there are people their age with children of the same age as their children in those areas. So to say that they are best placed on Northbourne Avenue is not true and certainly does not reflect their desires or their expectations. And that was certainly the implicit message in some of Mr Smyth’s comments today.
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