Page 1541 - Week 05 - Wednesday, 10 May 2017
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public housing. In fact previous salt and peppering of public housing means that almost every resident I know in Weston Creek already lives next door to or two doors down from a public housing tenant, and there are no problems with that.
It does not mean that there is never any work for us to do regarding any community coming together or assistance. Of course, we do that. In the house that I lived in before my current one, I had a St Vincent de Paul house on one side and a government house on the other. We were involved in those people’s lives, sometimes for their own benefit, and they were sometimes grateful. That is what I would do with any neighbour, and with neighbours who live in houses that they own as well. I have done that as well.
As I have said many times in this place, knowing your neighbours, who they are and how they are going is the key to social capacity, it is the key to social cohesion and it is the key to a great city. It is not about government schemes or people in this place lecturing others about who they should or should not welcome or how they should behave. If individual residents take it upon themselves to know how their neighbours are going, this city is a better place for that. I know it happens all the time now. It has happened to me when I have moved into new houses, and I think it is very important.
Weston Creek residents are good people. After the 2003 bushfires, which we will discuss later today in this place, the people of Weston Creek showed how good they were. There was nobody with a blanket left in the cupboard at the end of that process. There are people in Weston Creek and on the western fringe still walking around suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder from that event. There are people who are still suffering anxiety from that. One lady who lives in Percy Crescent in Chapman said to me that every summer she packs a bag in case a fire comes. She probably feels she does not have a lot of choice about her housing to some extent because she has invested her money there and that is where she lives. She probably does not have the capacity to move at a later stage in life, once her income has more or less shrunk. So there are many who are still suffering.
I can understand that the minister does not want a debate that labels tenants as problematic, and I agree with that. But there must still be a way to debate the substance of the matter, which is whether these blocks are appropriate for this or not. I am sure there are other blocks. Many people have come to me and said, “Why don’t we buy back Mr Fluffy blocks and put dual occupancies on them?” I know that is an expensive suggestion, but it shows how keen the community is to have these people housed in their own neighbourhood. Everywhere, all over Weston Creek, there are Mr Fluffy blocks. The government actually owns them at a point in time. I know they have to recoup the money that has been lent from the federal government for that project. I understand that might be impossible, but the fact that locals are saying that to me shows how keen they are to see these people in every street in Weston Creek, Woden and new Molonglo.
Therefore it is a worthy debate to discuss what CFZ land should be used for, and how that is communicated to the community. I suspect there is a better understanding of it now than there was a few weeks ago. The use of this land has clearly moved well
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