Page 1070 - Week 04 - Thursday, 21 May 2020
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We are, of course, watching this. The ABS provide some initial data, and obviously they have their monthly reports, plus we are looking at activity as it relates to total hours worked in the economy and the level of wages that are being paid. That has, it seems, at this point, bottomed out and is now starting to increase, so more hours are being worked and more wages are being paid. But this would be the most significant downturn that the Australian economy has experienced since the Great Depression. (Time expired.)
Housing—rent arrears
MS LE COUTEUR: My question is to the minister for housing and relates to Housing ACT’s policies around tenants’ rental arrears during the COVID-19 pandemic time. I have seen a copy of a letter sent this month to an ACT Housing tenant threatening legal action because of arrears. Minister, can you please explain how threatening legal action for arrears sits in the context of the public statement that there is an eviction moratorium for all Housing ACT tenants in this time?
MS BERRY: It might assist in providing support for the tenant that Ms Le Couteur is seeking to represent in this place to provide that information to my office so that we can follow up with the actual situation that is going on there. But the situation remains that, further to the declaration, there would be a three-month moratorium on terminations of public housing tenancies. That will continue and will continue to be the case. I can confirm that again in the Assembly. I encourage Ms Le Couteur to get in touch with my office or have the constituent that she is representing contact my office so that we can follow up that situation.
MS LE COUTEUR: Notice to the tenant took over a week to arrive and by the time it arrived he was quite distressed because he had to ring back that day, which he did. Given that Australia Post is currently taking longer than usual to process and deliver mail, will Housing ACT consider some other method of getting in touch with tenants or at least giving them a much longer time period for response before they are threatened with legal action?
MS BERRY: In fact Housing ACT have been working very hard over the past four weeks or so to contact individually by phone, if at all possible, every single housing tenant in the ACT. Over 12,000 phone calls are being attempted to get in touch with tenants in the ACT and over 5,000 have been contacted by phone and had personal contact with a person from Housing ACT specifically to deal with the rebate of $250 that is being offered by the ACT government and get that into their accounts as soon as we possibly can.
In addition to those phone calls updating details and finding ways to get that money into our housing tenants’ accounts and into their pockets, they have also been able to support tenants who have experienced other issues. For example, one of the stories that I have heard from an housing manager is that they had got in touch with a tenant early during COVID-19 who was experiencing quite significant isolation, and the housing manager was then able to put the tenant in touch with a bunch of different community service organisations around food and other supports because of that phone contact that had been made by Housing ACT.
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