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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 7 Hansard (25 June) . . Page.. 2140 ..

MR STEFANIAK (continuing):

That should be good news for you. So, there is hardly any cut-back on that, or any underspend; but, as a result of those factors, Mr Speaker, we now have some more money to spend on maintenance, even from this year. That is a good thing. Combined with the $27.2m for this coming financial year, I think it is good news for our tenants and for improving the quality of our stock.

I will just finish with a couple of examples of maintenance, if you think it is so funny, Ms Reilly. Since February of this year, we have upgraded security lighting in a number of areas; 1,000 properties are being insulated; and 253 exhaust fans have also been ordered. That is just since February 1997, as a result of improvements that have occurred there. So, when you take all that into account, plus the fairly extensive capital works program we have, Mr Speaker, and especially the very significant amount of money - $27.2m - for maintenance and waiting lists that are still much lower than when the previous mob were in, I think it is a pretty good housing budget, in the circumstances.

MS REILLY (6.32): Mr Speaker, the Minister has raised so many interesting issues that it is hard to know where to start. Maybe one of the things to start with is the fact that he pointed out - this was pointed out in the Estimates Committee and has been raised at other times - that ACT housing stock is not typical. It is different from everywhere else. Age is given as one of the reasons for it. If the ACT housing stock is not typical, if it is different from and older than all other public housing stock in Australia, the question you must ask is: Why have they given $15.4m out of the housing budget back to the Commonwealth? You would think the Commonwealth would say, "No, you cannot take it out of housing, because your housing stock is older than, and not typical of, housing stock in the rest of Australia. You should keep it and reinvest it in decent housing stock in the ACT". You would almost think they would refuse to take our contribution to Costello's black hole just so that the housing budget could be saved. You do wonder about the logic of taking more than $15m out of the budget where you have a non-typical situation. It is amazing.

Maintenance is an interesting issue. I think the Minister is quite interesting on the subject. You must admire the entrepreneurial activities of the maintenance area. Somebody might ask for something in their bathroom to be fixed. I think there was one case where, although I cannot remember all the details, they got a whole lot of things fixed in their bathroom, and Housing billed them for the whole lot. So, you ask for a new tap, and you end up with a whole new shower system. Then you are expected to pay for it - and all you wanted in the first place was a new tap. I am just using that as an example.

It has been interesting to watch them claw back, or attempt to claw back, from a number of tenants costs of maintenance, some of which was not done or requested. This is going to be an interesting issue that will continue. I was pleased to hear that you are spending so much on security lighting. Some of the tenants in APUs for whom I asked for assistance in this matter had to ask for an awfully long time - like several years - to get any security lighting. We also raised the matter with the police; but they were even less interested, telling older women in our community that they should go out and confront people who are hanging around and intruding into their properties. It is an interesting way of managing policing, as well.

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