Crisis needs more action

A headache for the Government she might be, but Liberal Speaker Sue Hickey deserves credit for not being afraid to tell it like it is.

Speaker Sue Hickey at Windsor Court, Glenorchy. Picture: LUKE BOWDEN

A HEADACHE for the Government she might be, but Liberal Speaker Sue Hickey deserves credit for not being afraid to tell it like it is. Her latest foray into public criticism of her own party’s performance in government came in the Mercury yesterday, and this time her target was public housing.

Public tenants, Ms Hickey said, were living in conditions “not fit for animals” because of an underfunded housing system that was “completely busted”. She called on the Government (her party-room colleagues) to take urgent action to address what she described as a “real life horror story”. She pointed out the Government was tens of millions of dollars behind in public housing maintenance — and the ambitious construction program that is the cornerstone of Housing Minister Roger Jaensch’s response so far to the crisis appeared to be nothing more than “spin”.

“It’s a scandal, and as a member of the Government I’m embarrassed,” Ms Hickey told the Mercury’s political editor David Killick.

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It was an extraordinary critique, but one the Mercury understands comes from the heart. Privately, the former Hobart lord mayor talks of how her biggest surprise since becoming an MP at last year’s state election has been the shocking stories told by people who turn up at her Glenorchy electorate office seeking help. Blowing the whistle on the situation is a calculated attempt to convince the Government to work harder to deliver a proper fix — a fix that Ms Hickey says should start with the redirection of infrastructure funding to public housing.

Ms Hickey also repeats the call made many times by Tasmanian politicians for the Federal Government to forgive the $34 million debt still owed by the state for public housing built in the 1970s. The Mercury supports this call wholeheartedly. It makes no sense that we are spending more money a year on interest servicing a historic public sector housing debt than we are on building new homes to help the more than 3000 Tasmanians on the waiting list. And that is before we even address that $50 million maintenance backlog.

All that being said, we acknowledge that Ms Hickey’s critique was cheekily timed to come ahead of the Government’s announcement yesterday of a new $125 million affordable housing package that will help 2600 households. That plan, unveiled by the Housing Minister, appears a solid one — and a genuine effort to fix these issues. In normal times it would pass muster.

But these are not normal times. What we are confronting in Tasmania is a genuine housing crisis — one that extends far beyond just those that public housing assists. People with real jobs and no welfare dependency are now struggling to put a roof over their heads, particularly in Hobart. Rental vacancy rates are not only the lowest they have ever been, but consequently prices are the highest they have ever been — and affordability (price compared with the average wage) is now, by far, the worst in the nation.

And so the Government needs to lift its gaze beyond just public housing. Yes, the issues raised by Ms Hickey need to be addressed as a matter of urgency. But the Government needs to consider the wider need — and the urgent requirement for a proper response.

It was more than a year ago now that the Government held its much-vaunted housing summit that was convened after the Mercury’s reporting of families being forced to live in tents due to soaring rental prices. Since then not much has been done, and the situation continues to get worse. Instead of being angry at Ms Hickey, we suggest the Government treats her intervention as a wake-up call and gets serious.