Page 779 - Week 04 - Tuesday, 1 May 2007

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The number of people paying market rent is falling anyway. It is hard to see how this latest move will economically benefit Housing ACT. The only thing it does is allow the ACT government to claim that it is addressing growing need without increasing housing stock. Even the notion of shared equity, which the government plans to push people into as a clever little catch-all solution, is ludicrous if your government house happens to be in an expensive suburb. It is impossible if you live in a unit because this government has ensured that these properties are not strata titled. Yet people who fall above or outside the line will be pushed out of those too, I imagine.

One constituent contacted the Champions group who is going to advise, we are told, the government on how to manage the process. She advised us that she was met with hostility. She rang the information number provided on the letter from Housing ACT, and no-one at that end was any help either. She has no confidence that Housing ACT will deal sensitively and generously with tenants who have been such positive contributors to the Housing ACT community. I am talking here about perceptions. (Time expired.)

MR HARGREAVES (Brindabella—Minister for the Territory and Municipal Services, Minister for Housing, Minister for Multicultural Affairs) (5.30), in reply: Let me address a couple of things that Mrs Burke said a little earlier. I thank her for her support but I need to put some clarification down. Then I will address some of the things that Dr Foskey said.

Mrs Burke said that she appreciates the fact that this government has adopted Liberal Party policy in relation to making tenancy available in housing. We have not done any such thing. We have not adopted Liberal Party policy, but we certainly have matched it. This government is proceeding cautiously by taking a long lead time in introducing changes, even for those on incomes of $80,000 or more. Perhaps Dr Foskey, who whinges like blazes because she cannot get a hearing, would like to turn her television set on when she gets upstairs. She throws accusations around here like confetti and will not sit here and listen to the explanation. Is it any wonder people regard her with such derision?

We have said that, even for those on incomes of $80,000 or more, it could take a period of about three years. The former Liberal government took a much simpler and harsher approach, in our view. In time, all of the 11,500 families renting public housing thus found themselves at threat of eviction at regular intervals, particularly when the tenants’ income reached a particular level. All tenancies were reviewed.

If the tenants’ income reached average weekly earnings for a couple plus 10 per cent, which I am advised is currently about $61,500, action was taken. There was no effort to ensure the income level was sustainable or that the transition was eased for the tenant. There was no shared equity scheme; it was all or nothing. You either rented or you bought the whole house.

Labor government policy is aimed at those with a sustainable income of $80,000 or more, and there will be a transitional period. In addition, we will aim at allowing even these tenants to buy the house they are renting from the government either outright or in a shared equity scheme. Let me assure all of our tenants that we are not the Liberal Party and that there will be no abrupt termination of anyone’s tenancy.


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