Page 521 - Week 02 - Wednesday, 18 February 2015
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under the NAHA. That is not the impression the government wants to project. Those funded specifically under the national partnership agreement on homelessness are quite understandably fighting to get additional funding to get the NPA extended and I understand that entirely.
What we do know is that the ACT government is selling off more public housing properties without a transparent plan of how to manage those tenants. What this will mean is potentially more pressure on the public housing waiting list. It will increase the amount of time people will be waiting to get into a public housing property. It is important for the public housing tenants, interest groups, peak bodies and all of us here to understand the time frame for the redevelopment, the plan for the relocation of ACT Housing tenants, the plan for which tenants will be moved back into the public housing units and the plan to manage the net decline in public housing. I hope that Ms Berry’s amendment captures that.
Another important question is how much of the money raised from the sale of public housing properties and redevelopment will be reinvested into affordable housing and public housing in the ACT. I would like to go back briefly to the Auditor-General’s inquiry into the national partnership agreement on homelessness, It was report No 4 of 2013. I quote from that report:
People are likely to remain in homelessness programs and initiatives longer if housing affordability is a problem.
This is the Auditor-General saying this. I am sure it is self-evident that I, along with all members of this Assembly, am concerned about homelessness in the ACT. I support homelessness services implicitly. But we must do more than churn people through homelessness services. We must provide exits from homelessness. Therein lies the problem for us here in the ACT, that of housing affordability.
Amendment agreed to.
Motion, as amended, agreed to.
Community sector—funding
MS PORTER (Ginninderra) (5.08): I move:
That this Assembly:
(1) notes the importance of local community services in fostering inclusion and equality across the ACT community;
(2) recognises the strong partnerships which exist between the ACT Government and community and not-for-profit sectors in the planning and provision of local services;
(3) notes the work that the ACT Government is currently doing to:
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