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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1996 Week 12 Hansard (21 November) . . Page.. 4121 ..

MS REILLY (continuing):

If we look at the sales program for this year - the 180 to 200 sales that will go ahead - it would be interesting to know where they are and how many are just happening through opportunistic events such as the tenant dying and you quickly whipping out the auction sign and putting the house up for sale. How much is planned? A lot of people wonder how a decision is made about which houses are sold and which ones are not. There is a very low pick-up, and there has been over the years, of tenants purchasing their own homes; so there must be an awful lot of public houses being sold, apart from the very large ones which I think are in Manuka and Griffith. I also wonder why we have such a huge sales program at a time when the housing market in the ACT is so flat. By selling off this many houses you are not changing that housing market. You are actually pushing out other ACT residents who may wish to sell at this time and move elsewhere, apart from all those who are leaving the ACT. They are the ones who are missing out through these large sales because their house prices have gone down too. Why are we selling off our assets so cheaply at this time?

We have a large public housing sector in the ACT and it is an asset we should be proud of. We should not be selling it at some sort of fire sale for rock bottom prices. We should be nurturing that asset. We should be looking after those 4,000 people who are still on the waiting list. We should be finding ways of housing those people, rather than selling off houses. If we do have 195, and 180 are being sold, we will not get that many people into houses this year because it starts only this year, and most of those will not be finished within this financial year. All in all, this seems to be a very disorganised part of the budget. It is one that could have closer scrutiny as the year continues.

MR STEFANIAK (Minister for Education and Training and Minister for Housing and Family Services) (2.27 am): I am glad that at least Ms Reilly is happy with Condamine Court. Ms Reilly, I will send you an invitation to the opening. I think one of the blocks will be opened fairly soon. That will provide some very good accommodation for a number of our tenants. There is also the potential there for another block to go up, a combination of both public and private. That could be stage 2 Condamine Court. I suppose it is a case of "Watch this space". That could overcome some of the problems you see with it in terms of better units, but perhaps not quite so many. That could certainly address that.

You raised a number of points. You talked about Ainslie. We talked about Ainslie yesterday. Yes, there is a lot of public housing in Ainslie, and yes, there are some plans there which will be worked through over the next few months or even longer. In relation to that particular suburb, Ms Reilly, I have said a number of times, and I reiterate it, that it is ACT Housing's policy, in terms of sale and in terms of placement of tenants, that we have a presence right across Canberra. There are very few suburbs where there is no public housing stock.

In terms of the current sales, just like the sales which occurred during the time your party was in power, the sales are right across Canberra, so it is hardly getting rid of a lot of properties just in Ainslie. If you look at where the sales are - I think you have that information - you will see that there are sales right across Canberra. This is hardly a fire sale. As I said to the Estimates Committee, something like 54 or 55 houses had been sold this financial year up to the time I gave evidence, raising some $8.556m.

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