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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2003 Week 1 Hansard (20 February) . . Page.. 331 ..

MR WOOD (continuing):

I say to Housing tenants that you often get what you give. We have lots of wonderful tenants-about 11,000 of them. I suppose the number of people who lose their tenancies in the end is relatively small. For the most part, they are people who tend to come and go, and you never hear about them. They are usually young, single, people who come-and they go off somewhere else.

It is distressing when it is a family. We have been urged along by Ms Tucker. I am not sure we needed the urging, but we work with her and other members-more than you would know, Ms Tucker. We have worked with people and families. We have worked around the situation to help families. We do our best. We do not want to see families out on the streets, but there are two recent cases which stand out where families have been evicted. What do we do? It is almost built into the system. In a roundabout way, we try to find accommodation for them, and try to look after them in a continuing manner.

Ms Tucker mentioned the five housing specialists who have come on board. They do a terrific job. They are not inexperienced. They came on board as pretty experienced people, although not necessarily specifically with Housing. They are very experienced people. They help out. Their primary task is to find where there are issues and then to urge those people with whom they deal into the broader area of Canberra where there is care. That is their specific task.

Ms Gallagher will explain how a lot of that works and what happens. I guess you all know about that. I do not mind saying that, from time to time, it does not work as well as it might. Sometimes we make telephone calls and raise a case about a tenant, only to be told, "Oh well, it's ACT Housing-it's your job."But we are getting there. I think all agencies are taking care and looking at issues. Ms Gallagher and I know well at least one recent example where we have done that.

This was not the speech I was planning to give! I was going to spend some time explaining the economic circumstances of ACT Housing-and how financially constrained they are, because of all the different areas. I do not think everybody in this town understands some of those constraints, but I will not get into that area today. Perhaps we can have another debate on another day about the financial constraints faced by ACT Housing.

Previously in this place, I have used a word that I am pretty cautious about. I did not use it when I was in opposition but, as members do, I can say there is a crisis-at least a crisis of sorts-in Housing in the ACT-whether it is public or private.

There was a report last week or the week before from one of the banks about a 33 per cent increase in the prices of houses in the ACT in just one year. That imposes all sorts of strains on tenants. It might be great for home owners. Your asset has gone up by a substantial amount-you are much richer. However, for tenants-public or private-these are tough times, even when you are pretty well-off. The Affordability Housing Task Force has a good amount of detail about that and it bears reading, to see the housing stress that many people are under.

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