Page 422 - Week 02 - Tuesday, 16 February 2016
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relating to housing and homelessness services were released in January. These show that the ACT had the highest percentage of clients with unmet need for accommodation services and the lowest percentage of clients provided with accommodation, or accommodation-related assistance, in Australia in 2014-15. Data also shows the number of ACT public housing dwellings in 2014-15 was below the level prescribed by the national partnership agreement on asset recycling. Minister, how will depleting the number of public housing dwellings below the level prescribed by the national partnership agreement on asset recycling impact on our already strained public housing waiting lists?
MS BERRY: I thank the member for the question. Stock numbers will vary slightly as the public housing renewal program and the housing capital program continue. I am advised that we will be back to 10,848 public housing dwellings by the end of the financial year.
MADAM SPEAKER: A supplementary question, Ms Lawder.
MS LAWDER: Minister, why did the ACT have the highest percentage of clients with unmet need for accommodation services in Australia in 2014-15?
MS BERRY: Our waiting list in the ACT is 21 per cent of our housing stock. Comparing New South Wales, their waiting list is 53 per cent of their housing stock. Queensland is the closest with 25 per cent. In the ACT we have provided homelessness expenditure funding per person based on all of the population per day of $53.32. The national average is $29.93. Forty per cent of that funding is to services that are directed at helping people.
Ms Lawder: On a point of order, Madam Speaker, the question was specifically about why we have the highest percentage of clients with unmet needs, not other statistics that Ms Berry is providing.
MADAM SPEAKER: I remind Ms Berry of the content of standing order 118(a). I am prepared to listen for a while to see whether she gets to the point of Ms Lawder’s question, which was: why do we have the highest rate of unmet need, according to the ROGS report?
MS BERRY: I guess the point of the question goes to a particular piece of data at a certain point in time, which is the ROGS data. We also have data which we use every day, which is reported every month, from First Point which tells us exactly the number of people who are on our waiting list. First Point do not just collect data; they also follow through with every individual on those lists and they make sure that they are being supported if they require priority housing, high needs housing or other kinds of housing.
That is where I was going to with the 40 per cent of our homelessness support services that are directed at helping people sustain their housing so that they do not fall into homelessness themselves. I guess that is the point that I wanted to make when I was talking about housing in the ACT. Because of the work that First Point does we know our clients much better than anyone else does.
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