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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 7 Hansard (25 June) . . Page.. 2143 ..

MS REILLY (continuing):

Is there going to be a rollover of this money? We have a considerable underexpenditure in this area. Is it going to roll over, so that we can have it sitting there, in case things suddenly change and people can actually access these grants?

Under the old HomeBuyer scheme, every year about 300-plus people used to have the opportunity to get into home ownership - and, not only that; they were people on low incomes who had no other way of accessing home ownership. So, they got assistance from the Government to get into home ownership. This year we are not sure who is getting the Kick Start grants, because you suggest that all that information is under privacy provisions. We cannot even find out whether they are real people. We cannot find out anything about the people that have so far received the Kick Start grants. That is a pity. How can you look at a program, or even look at any sort of success, when you have no idea of who is a recipient? We do not know whether the only people who can get those grants, who are eligible through the very restrictive criteria used by the banks and their insurers, are the people who are on a family income of $45,000 a year. We have no idea who is getting them. Is this a program that is in any way looking at people on low incomes getting into home ownership?

MR SPEAKER: Order! The member's time has expired.

MS REILLY: May I have an extension?

MR SPEAKER: It is entirely up to the Assembly. You are getting the record at the moment. You will have had 30 minutes by the time we have finished. But go on.

(Extension of time granted)

MS REILLY: Thank you, Mr Speaker. We have no idea whether the people who are getting these Kick Start grants are people who have quite good family incomes of $45,000 or people who have incomes of much less. When you consider that the average weekly earnings annual rate is still at about $27,000 to $28,000, $45,000 is considerably above it. You would wonder whether $45,000 is low income at all. So, if we are going to offer these grants to people who are quite well able to go to another bank and get a loan, you wonder what is the purpose of this program.

If it is a jobs program - and we never found out how many jobs are created - let us have a jobs program. If we are going to offer deposit gap grants to middle-income earners, why do we not say that? We already have the situation where we are talking about these people as first home owners - where, in fact, if you have not owned a home for two years you can access this system. It is not even a first home owners scheme. It is a real mishmash of bits and pieces that have not come together. The take-up has been so low that you cannot consider this program a success. I will look with interest to see how you are going to pull this program out of a hole and get it to work.

The financial institutions, for which there can be no competitive tender, if you remember rightly, Minister, do not seem to be able to encourage people - they discourage people - to take up these grants, even though, as you point out, there are many benefits to these grants on top of the $5,000 generously given by ACT Housing to these people. These people who have the opportunity to have these grants are not low-income earners.

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