Page 1295 - Week 04 - Wednesday, 11 April 2018
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and Labor-Greens government, this progressive government, the public housing proportion has gone down from 12.2 per cent to 7.1 per cent? Is that not ironic?
Mr Rattenbury: No.
MR PARTON: These are figures that came from Ms Le Couteur’s notes, so you can take it up with her, Mr Rattenbury, if you want to.
Our reality is that over the past 20 years the governing party that has presided over the highest proportion of public housing stock as a percentage of the total housing stock is the Canberra Liberals. Isn’t that fascinating?
Ms Berry interjecting—
MR PARTON: The highest figure that you quoted in the past 20 years was from 2001. Is the figure correct or is it incorrect?
Ms Le Couteur points out that of the 4,120 dwelling sites to be released in 2017-18, 143 will be assigned for public housing. Again, this motion fails to offer any critique of the government’s outcome target for this area. I would ask Ms Le Couteur why she has not called upon this Assembly to condemn the government for not meeting the targets that she has asked us to support via this motion. I would concede that she has made those calls in other ways and other places in recent times.
We all know very well that this government has all the tools at its disposal to grow the supply of affordable rental housing. But of course, funding is severely constrained. And on the subject of funding, we must remind ourselves that the proceeds from the sale of the 1,300 inner city dwellings for the public housing renewal program get ploughed into the capital metro project. Nothing from those proceeds will be dedicated to the public housing supply; it all goes to the tram. We are assured that there is overwhelming community support. This compels the government to find additional capital funding from other sources to implement the public housing renewal program, a program worth around $608 million.
There is no denying that some residents of public housing living in old and squalid properties do need a response from government. Our inboxes abound with pleas for help from public housing residents seeking relief from all sorts of things: from poor maintenance, from feral animal infestations, from poor maintenance services, from feelings of neglect. Many of us have had to deal with instances where the mental and physical wellbeing of residents has been severely affected. Instead, the proceeds from the sales of old public housing stock all get fed into the tram service, and the poor old ratepayer has to pick up the difference to help people in substandard accommodation and pick up the bill for the public housing renewal program. Again, this motion is silent on these issues, but just blandly calls on the government to do better. I think the government should be doing better.
The motion contains some noble sentiments, the principles of which none of us here would oppose. I must highlight that, broadly speaking, we support what Ms Le Couteur is saying here. We must remind ourselves always of what the real
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