Speaker Sue Hickey wants complete overhaul of ‘failing’ government housing body
Housing Tasmania should be “completely restructured and downsized” as it is no longer delivering the services it should be providing, says Speaker Sue Hickey.
Politics
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LIBERAL MP Sue Hickey has made a bombshell last-minute submission to the Government’s housing inquiry, calling for radical change to public housing policy.
Ms Hickey, who is the Speaker and member for Clark, accused Housing Tasmania of having failed and called for a complete restructure of the organisation.
She said an example of ongoing problems was the Windsor Court unit block in Hobart, which she described as an urban ghetto replete with stealing, violence, knife-wielding, prostitution and meth labs run by street kids in vacant units.
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“Housing Tasmania appears to me to be an organisation failing its clients,” her submission said.
“The model may have worked 20 years ago, but it is not nimble enough to deal with the current situation of way too many people unable to access a roof over their heads.
“It is apparent that we are wasting valuable taxpayer funds running the present model.
“This has to stop, and the funds redirected to actually delivering rental housing to those in need. This leads to the question of why wouldn’t the government now transfer more of the balance of its Housing Tasmania managed housing stock to these efficient NGOs and church organisations, who clearly put the human view first.”
The House of Assembly’s Select Committee on Housing Affordability began public hearings in Hobart on Tuesday.
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Ms Hickey will give evidence first thing on Wednesday morning. She said it was time to overhaul the government housing provider.
She said Windsor Court was a stark illustration of its failure.
“This block of units qualifies as an urban ghetto, with high levels of crime, particularly stealing, violence, knife-wielding, methamphetamine labs run by street kids in vacant units, drug dealing and prostitution occurring within its boundaries. This complex is less than a two-minute walk to the police station,” she said.
“It has regular call outs to the emergency services due to the violence that exists between the tenants or their couch surfing friends leaving some residents living in extreme fear.
“I have raised this with the Minister’s office on many occasions.”
Housing Minister Roger Jaensch did not directly address Ms Hickey’s submission in a statement issued late on Tuesday.
“We are actively participating in the committee process and have provided a submission to it,” he said. “We welcome broad-ranging engagement with the committee and we look forward to the outcomes of the process.
“Importantly, the Hodgman majority Liberal Government is absolutely committed to increasing the availability of affordable housing and we are working hard to implement our Affordable Housing Strategy which invests almost $200 million over eight years, the largest ever investment into affordable housing in Tasmania’s history.”
The chief executive of Housing Tasmania Peter White appeared before the committee on Tuesday, before Ms Hickey’s submission was made public.
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He said the Government would spend $19 million this year servicing the $149.6 million historic housing debt owed to the Federal Government.
“It represents around half of what we receive from the Commonwealth each year,” he said.
Mr White that any deal to forgive that debt would enable to State Government to boost construction of social housing or lift other services for the homeless.
“It could certainly provide quite a significant increase in social housing. It would equate to around 80 to 100 homes per annum,” he said.
The committee heard the State Government owns 12,504 properties with a total valuation of up to $2.1 billion.
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