Page 167 - Week 01 - Wednesday, 23 February 1994
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .
front page of the Valley View, the Chronicle, the Canberra Times or somewhere else, screaming about the Government spending money in this fashion. It is done as a straight-out populist thing; it is done as a straight-out argument to do no more than pander to a particular interest of the Liberal Party. I believe that this Bill should be rejected. There are obvious flaws - - -
Mr Kaine: What? Housing Trust tenants are a particular interest of the Liberal Party? Thanks for acknowledging that.
Mr Connolly: I think he meant "target".
MR LAMONT: Let him read the transcript, Mr Connolly. He will probably understand it better if it is in writing. The Bill itself is flawed. The premise upon which this Bill rests is flawed. I think that the other arguments that Mr Cornwell and Mr Humphries have put up have been quite adequately demolished by the range of speakers before me.
MR STEVENSON (12.15): Far from the arguments being demolished, they simply stand strongly on a social justice issue.
Mr Lamont: Dennis is going to say, "Flog them off, flog them off".
MR STEVENSON: Mr Lamont says, "Dennis is going to say, 'Flog them off, flog them off'.". Where is the logic and where is the social justice in denying people the opportunity to own their own property? Surely we would not deny them that. Is that not the goal? Is that not what we should all be in agreement about? Indeed, is that not the suggestion? Who here denies that that is the goal?
Mr Connolly: We lend them money through Commissioner for Housing loans.
MR STEVENSON: I understand, and that is one of the benefits that I will get to in a moment. The goal surely is to make people responsible for their own lives, to make them self-sufficient; to encourage them to do that, if possible. If that is not possible, obviously we allow a situation where people can be looked after. But is the idea to have people stay in government housing for the rest of their lives, is the idea for people to go on unemployment benefits for the rest of their lives, or should we be doing every single thing we can to encourage - not to force, but to encourage - in this case, home ownership?
The suggestion that there are ulterior motives for the Bill cannot be sustained, because when you read the Bill all you find is the possibility of tenants buying properties. Let us look at what this results in. In New South Wales particularly, and certainly in Victoria, there was a tendency, some decades ago, for public housing to be in the one suburb. We certainly know of places in the western suburbs in Sydney - around Bankstown, Liverpool and so on - some of which, unfortunately, got such a bad name that the name of the suburb was changed. For example, Herne Bay became Riverwood. What happened when the policy of the Housing Commission in New South Wales was changed to allow and to encourage people to buy the property? A number of things happened. First, many people started to take better care of the property. This may be politically unacceptable to mention.
Mr Connolly: We are doing it in lots of suburbs, but not Reid, Ainslie, Red Hill or Barton.
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .