Page 1459 - Week 05 - Wednesday, 6 April 2005
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However, this issue today is certainly not all about public housing tenants; it is about all residents of the ACT and their being afforded the opportunity to enjoy the safety, peace and quiet of their own homes and surroundings. For a growing number of people, this is tragically in decline and people’s quality of life is being dramatically downgraded. At the risk of my sounding dramatic—and the minister can sit there saying that I am probably doing that now—the minister had better understand that we, the opposition, are listening. Maybe the government needs to do the same. This issue reaches to the heart of whether people are law-abiding citizens and really has nothing to do with, in many ways, whether those people are public housing tenants or private residents.
However, if there is rising crime and lawlessness, we will simply drive people away from Canberra. We will send out a wrong message. Canberra used to be known as a great place to live and bring up children. That is why I came to live here. You cannot keep hiding from the fact that there are problems. The problem is that we do not see the problems out in the media; they are well hidden. But the minister is aware of them and he needs to deal with them.
The specific challenge that must be considered is that Housing ACT tenants are concerned that there is a great deal of buck-passing between Housing ACT and the police, as there does not appear to be a clear delineation of responsibility. For example, tenants will call the police to ask for assistance due to the unruly behaviour of another resident, but the police are concerned with becoming involved, citing it as a housing/landlord/tenancy issue. Yet, when the tenant then refers the matter to Housing ACT, the advice is that it is a police matter.
It has been reported to me that police are so busy that often they have been unable to attend to calls for help in a timely manner. This shows the obvious signs of a police force under too much pressure. I am not suggesting that Housing ACT as landlord is not adhering to the requirements of landlords under the Residential Tenancies Act. Tenants, as indeed other people in the community, must take responsibility for their own actions. That is understood; we know that the vast majority do. But it is clear to me that both Housing ACT and the police are under great pressure and are underresourced to deal adequately with the situation or particular problems where clear lines of responsibility may not always be apparent. This confusion does nothing to help instil confidence in our community.
I question the existence or even the validity of a memorandum of understanding between Housing ACT and the police. I am often advised that they do work together, but I have to wonder just how formal this arrangement is and if it is an area that needs firming up. Clearly, the people left floundering in the middle are human beings. It is not acceptable that tenants are being passed from pillar to post in order to get a resolution to their problem. Often these things are life threatening. I would suggest that reports about gun running and stuff happening in a complex are enough to send anybody there.
People are feeling isolated and left alone as they are trying to live their lives, albeit in fear. They are left wondering what to do when a problem arises. They simply do not know who to go to, minister, and they are often given conflicting advice. Again, this goes back to the need for clear lines of responsibility. In the case of public housing, there is often a poor handling of cases. It is simply not good enough to receive a job number
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