Page 3504 - Week 11 - Wednesday, 15 November 2006
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When I moved around the sector I got the impression people were saying, “Thanks for the impetus and for the encouragement to move forward and restructure.” We have had a couple of smaller organisations restructure already. With the assistance of the department, they are providing better services already.
We have got some innovative projects going. SOUL, Poachling and TAS are three that are moving forward. We are having a chat with Havelock Housing Association. We have some problems with some of them, but the problems that we have are from the lobby groups, not from those providing services in the sector. When I had a conversation with Hartley Lifecare and TAS the other day out at Kambah, when we turned the sod to build a six-client piece of accommodation for adaptable housing, they were absolutely thrilled to be in the partnership they are in.
I ask the Assembly to reject the motion put forward by Dr Foskey and accept the amended motion put forward by me and circulated in my name.
MR STEFANIAK (Ginninderra—Leader of the Opposition) (11.43): The opposition will be supporting Dr Foskey’s motion and not the amendment. Dr Foskey’s motion recognises the importance, indeed the growing importance, of community housing in the provision of social housing and affordable housing across Australia. It notes the government’s affordable housing steering group is due to make a final report in March 2007, which is Mr Hargreaves’s second point, and the community concern that the government appears to be moving away from its general support for community housing.
It also calls on the government to develop a policy for housing in partnership with both the sector and the affordable housing steering group. We see nothing wrong with that. That is desirable. The motion calls on the government to produce an action plan for that policy and to incorporate that plan within the government’s next budget. The motion does not say that it is calling on the government to spend any extra money—it will need a hell of a lot of extra money—and that is sensible, due to the financial constraints this government has placed itself in through its own inability. Accordingly, it seems to be a sensible motion. The cost of providing and accessing housing in the ACT is escalating, and at an unsustainable rate. That is something the community will not be able to shoulder ad infinitum.
The opposition supports the continuity of measured growth in the housing sector. It is a vital alternative to the public housing stock available. Indeed, it comes from that sector. It is managed in such a way that it is thought by tenants that they have greater input into the management of their tenancy.
Ten years ago, we had about 200 properties. We have 285 now. There was a plan, which was started when I was still the minister, to aim towards 1,000 properties. There were very good reasons: because of the nature of community housing, the tenants feel that they have a greater input and greater management of their tenancy, and community housing usually, not always, tends to be looked after a lot better than normal public housing because tenants feel they have an ownership in it.
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