Page 2853 - Week 08 - Wednesday, 14 August 2019
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may be mental health concerns for the people responsible for the unclean leaseholds, we also have a duty of care to the mental health concerns of the neighbours.
Failing to keep a leasehold clean can be a legitimate safety issue for the property owner, visitors, locals and emergency services if they are responding to an incident. Furthermore, failing to keep a leasehold clean can lead to potentially poor health outcomes for the property owner and for the adjacent residents, due to rodents, mosquitoes and other pests.
At the moment there is a lack of enforcement of controlled activity orders, including inspections and rectifications. Unclean leasehold issues will often drag on for years, even decades, with limited action from the property owner and next to no action from the government.
While there are certainly some complex cases, there are property owners who continue to abuse the system and flout the rules. The current procedures and processes are not working. It is not reasonable that these matters are dealt with as they are currently. We need prompt and effective solutions. Every Canberran has the responsibility to be a good citizen and follow the laws in place for everyone’s benefit. It is not fair that a few people continue to abuse the system to the detriment of many others in their community. This should not be at the expense of holistic services that treat underlying physical or mental health conditions, but inaction is not a solution. In fact, government inaction can magnify the problems and magnify the mental health concerns.
I will take a few moments to share some of the correspondence I have received from Canberrans who live adjacent to some of these properties. Some of them are here with us in the gallery today. I note that a number of these emails have been sent to numerous members of the Legislative Assembly, but the constituents have received little support and often no acknowledgement whatsoever from their elected representatives. This is one email I received from one of the residents with us today:
The garbage around the front yard still remains along with the white goods, weeds and rat-infested junk that dominates the backyard and is home to the three large, aggressive dogs which continue going off intermittently.
Just as we make progress with one thing this person begins hoarding something else! He’s just had another car dropped off by tow truck to replace the shipping container and sit next to his old van at the front of the house (which has been there … for months). How many vehicles can we now expect to see littering the yard like the white goods out back!
This ongoing junkyard rubbish issue … has gone on for so long it is beyond a joke. For several years now voting, tax and rate paying residents … have had to put up with neighbours who have repeatedly flouted the system and continue to undermine the value of our property and living conditions in our suburb.
This is another email I received:
… I received the attached response to a complaint I lodged in May 2018. I can’t believe it has taken them over one year to respond and advise of any action. They
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