Page 1398 - Week 05 - Wednesday, 6 April 2005
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requires constant review. Public housing should be for those most vulnerable, those most in need, in our community.
Recent figures released from the minister’s office show that there are 3,964 applications on the ACT housing register—up 219 from August 2004. I guess there may be more current figures that the minister would be able to provide, but these are the most recent we have. This equates to 8,450 clients on the waiting list in the ACT—up by 628.
I note that over 560 people are on the highest priority rating. It is currently taking approximately six months to place these people into public housing. When you are in crisis, the last thing you need is to be put in further crisis and stress. People need a roof over their heads and a secure place to live before they can start to get their lives back in order. Real change can be affected in the area of asset management by government to free up suitable properties to, for instance, allow for those on the housing waiting list to enter the market.
It is time for appropriate action to be taken to ensure that people seeking access to public housing—an affordable form of housing—are not kept waiting any longer than necessary, for the reasons that I have just given. We have people under stress, who are vulnerable, being given more pressures and stress. It is simply not acceptable in this day and age—and particularly not here in a capital city, one would have thought.
Measures to address housing affordability must focus on the underlying issues and not merely the symptoms. Again, we need to understand what is happening, particularly within the public housing sector. What is going on there? Why is it that we have more public housing properties than anywhere else in Australia and yet we have a job to get these people housed? I would suggest to you, Mr Speaker, that there are underlying reasons, and I think the minister really needs to look at those.
If people are inadvertently in a form of housing that does not suit their needs, they should be encouraged to pursue other options. I know this has happened. People have been wanting to move but the government, because it has hamstrung itself now on security of tenure, is almost saying, “No, ” or, “You can’t.”
I speak to people within the department—and the minister is probably wrestling with this very thing, too. The whole notion of security of tenure is an absolute nonsense because, in the government’s own asset management strategy, it cannot fully guarantee security of tenure—nobody can. People at Currong apartments could not have security of tenure there forever and a day. That gives a false impression, because they thought they were getting security of tenure at that particular place. The government really needs to review that, and work with the opposition and crossbenchers, so that we better understand what is actually meant by “security of tenure”.
There are some public housing tenants who are on good incomes, who may have additional assets, who could probably afford to move into the private market or, ultimately, into their own homes. This was an area that the former minister, Mr Bill Wood, was happy to talk to me about. Together we tried to think of ways to address that—and it certainly was a problem. The private rental market may be tight, but it is also subject to the principles of supply and demand. This is why the government must begin to implement real solutions to affordable housing in the ACT.
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