Page 156 - Week 01 - Wednesday, 23 February 1994
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We gutted them, pulled the backs out of the houses, and built six more units between the two properties, architecturally sympathetic to that late 1920s Federal Capital Commission design. We now have some eight aged persons units on that block. As you drive past on Flinders Way, or the little street at the back, the name of which escapes me, which is fronted by a small community park, you really have to look to realise that we do not have two small cottages there; we have a quite high density of urban living for aged persons, done in an extremely sympathetic manner.
That is what we talk about when we say that we have an enormous potential in our asset stock in the inner city to do imaginative and creative things with public housing. Once that asset stock is gone it can never be replaced. The reality is that this Territory will always face difficult budgetary decisions. Money will always be tight, absent finding the gold mine in the Brindabellas. We will always be under pressure to provide more public housing. It would be very difficult for any Housing Minister to say, "In terms of acquisition of new properties, instead of purchasing some properties at $120,000 per unit, per family, we will purchase an inner city property at $300,000 per unit". We would be criticised for having bought a very expensive inner city unit for one family, whereas we could have bought three such units in the outer suburbs. That pressure is always there.
The danger, if you lose your inner city properties, with that increasing economic pressure, is that the public housing stock becomes concentrated in the areas of Canberra where housing is most affordable, which tend to be the urban fringe. That creates major changes to the social fabric of this community which most Canberra residents are proud of - that we are an integrated community and that nearly every suburb has public housing. You can drive along streets in Red Hill which would have some of the highest property values in this town and you will drive past public houses and private houses. There is no stigma attached in this community, or there should be no stigma attached in this community, for the fact that there is public housing in a street. There is public housing in some of the best streets in Canberra. That is not something that you could say of Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide or Brisbane, because - - -
Mr Humphries: People can buy their houses now, can they not?
MR CONNOLLY: Can public tenants buy their houses? Yes, they can. Indeed, we have recently relaxed the period from 10 years to eight years, but we preserve to ourselves a discretion to say, "No, we will not sell that house".
Mr Humphries: And that is retained.
MR CONNOLLY: You are seeking to create a statutory right to purchase a house. We believe that that is a dangerous mechanism. We believe that that is a mechanism that will result, over time, in a gradual divestment of the public housing stock.
The system at the moment, Madam Speaker, does work quite well. Every time a public tenant purchases that public house there is a substantial cost to the trust in replacing the asset. You do not sell that house to that tenant and buy the house next-door at no cost. There is an economic disadvantage every time it occurs. Where a person has obviously locked into the house, has made improvements, and has an emotional affinity to the house, it may be appropriate that they can buy that house. The alternative is that they buy another house with a Commissioner for Housing loan or by other financial methods. If we create
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