Page 162 - Week 01 - Wednesday, 23 February 1994
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That was in relation to another point. They continue and say:
Some States (for example, Victoria) have a high proportion of older stock built in the 1950s and 1960s. The older, often inappropriate, stock is in part an outcome of State home ownership policies in the 1960s and 1970s when the then newer and better quality stock was often sold to tenants.
I think that is a fairly significant statement which is contained in the Industry Commission's report on public housing.
I was pleased to hear Mr Connolly or Mr Humphries mention that the time for tenants to purchase their public houses has been reduced from 10 years to eight years, but the Minister, and presumably the ACT Housing Trust, retain the discretion as to whether those properties will be sold to tenants or not. I think, in the context of this debate, that that is fairly important. Another issue raised was about the credit given for improvements made to ACT Housing Trust properties. I believe that it is absolutely essential that anybody renting public housing stock in the ACT who improves their properties in some way, shape or form be given some credit for the time and the effort they have put into maintaining that property over that period. I would be very disappointed at any proposal that would overturn that policy as it is currently operating in the Housing Trust.
MRS GRASSBY (11.57): I would have to agree with the Minister, for many reasons. When I was the Minister for Housing this was something that came before me. When I became the Minister I took a tour around, particularly of the inner city housing that the Housing Trust owned. I was quite amazed at the size of the blocks. One of the things that you find with the inner city housing is that the blocks are much larger. I remember an area which we did in Turner when I was the Minister. I think it was four blocks. We came to an agreement with the builder and we were able to do so many housing units. It worked out extremely well. I remember opening them and thinking what glamorous houses we were putting our Housing Trust people into, and this is the way it should be. All through Ainslie the blocks are enormous. The Minister has pointed out what they did with one block that had two very little houses on it. They were able to maintain the tone of the area, keep the heritage tone, yet still put more Housing Trust people in that area.
One of the things you find is that there are a lot of people living in these houses who cannot afford to buy them and who do not want to move. The great fear is that if you start selling these inner city houses people will end up being moved out. Deals can be done by developers for people to buy them and then, not long after that, they turn around and sell them and you find that it has turned into a development area. I feel that we should hang onto the stock in the inner city and use it to the best advantage that we possibly can. Where we have large blocks, or where we have two blocks together, we can put up townhouses, very nice housing. We can then look at some of the areas where we have dilapidated flats and move people who want to get out of them. Many people come to see me, saying that they want to move out of a flat. They have a small child and they want to move out of a two-bedroom flat that is on the second floor to maybe a townhouse or a smaller house. Usually single mums are looking for this. We can be looking at this area. I would have to agree with the Minister on this. I also have to agree with Ms Szuty's comments on it. I congratulate the Minister on the way that he has gone about this.
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