Page 3499 - Week 11 - Wednesday, 15 November 2006
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tenants, improved viability for community housing providers and the social good that would be generated in the provision of the houses. Unfortunately, CHC’s application for land tax exemption was refused. This really shows that we need to join the dots on social policy.
Access to safe, secure and affordable housing is both a human right and necessary for many other social and economic outcomes. This government once had a clear commitment to ensuring respect for that right. The last few years, however, have seen the government lose clarity in what it is hoping to achieve. Now we see the potential loss of small community housing providers that deliver social services to sometimes difficult and marginalised members of our community, a broader housing market that does not offer housing options to people on barely moderate incomes, public housing providing its own investment funds by cutting running costs, a homelessness strategy hamstrung by a lack of exit options and an angry community sector that has faced hostility from the government in return.
We should recognise that we will not get anywhere unless some sense of trust and partnership is rebuilt. This motion calls on the ACT government to take the first step and develop a policy for community housing in partnership with both the community housing sector and the affordable housing steering group. To quote from the commonwealth-state housing agreement:
Community Housing provides choice, it offers a higher level of tenant participation in management, and provides another avenue through which the diverse needs of individuals can be met.
If the ACT government is committed to the expansion of the community housing sector in the ACT, which I believe it is, it needs to deliver a policy and an action plan that reflect it. With regard to Mr Hargreaves’s interjections, I am reflecting here on what we have been told by a number of representatives of the community housing sector. I advise you to seek them out yourselves. All in all, it is good that the government has a commitment to the community housing sector, as revealed in the amendment that has been circulated. It is a great pity that it is not making that commitment more real with action plans and targets.
MR HARGREAVES (Brindabella—Minister for the Territory and Municipal Services, Minister for Housing and Minister for Multicultural Affairs) (11.28): Before I go into the substantive part of the motion, I put on the record that I am a bit disappointed that Dr Foskey continues to perpetuate a series of untruths regarding the amount of commitment this government has to public and community housing. She talks about the lack of expansion in public housing. There is no recognition of $30 million worth in the budget. There is no recognition of the dialogue that has gone on with the public, the public housing sector, the community housing sector and the private housing sector and the movements that we have had going forward.
I am concerned that Dr Foskey does not seem to acknowledge sufficiently that the community housing sector is, in effect, an inefficient system. It is full of people who should be praised to the nth for their commitment to their clientele. However, they function in an inefficient system—too many small players. They need to restructure. They themselves raised that issue in the ministerial forum. Dr Foskey talks about
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