Sue Hickey says housing crisis is ‘a real life horror story’ as she blasts Liberals over busted system

Public tenants are living in conditions “not fit for animals” because of an underfunded housing system that is “completely busted”.

Rubbish in the garden at Windsor Court in Glenorchy. Picture: LUKE BOWDEN

PUBLIC tenants are living in conditions “not fit for animals” because of an underfunded housing system that is “completely busted”, Speaker Sue Hickey says.

The Liberal member for Clark says the Government must take urgent action to address what she described as “a real life horror story” of people living in urban ghettos.

After visiting tenants in the Windsor Court housing complex in Glenorchy on Wednesday, Ms Hickey said the State Government was tens of millions of dollars behind in public housing maintenance, 300 women a month were being turned away from Hobart shelters and ambitious public housing construction targets appeared to be nothing more than “spin”.

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Ms Hickey said she was appalled by conditions in some public housing, the stories tenants brought into her electorate office daily, the state of decrepit housing stock and an often inflexible and paternalistic bureaucracy.

Speaker Sue Hickey has hit out at the Government over the housing crisis gripping the state. Picture: LUKE BOWDEN

She pointed to an unmanaged cockroach infestation at the Windsor Court complex, centred on an unoccupied unit, but affecting all.

“If this was private property the health department would close it down.”

But she said many tenants lived in fear of retribution if they complained.

“It’s a scandal, and as a member of the Government I’m embarrassed,” she said.

“We just have to get our priorities right, we’re not a Third World country. It is a terrible situation, an indictment on Tasmania.

“We are housing people in places not fit for animals.”

Ms Hickey said good-quality public housing was more important than ever as rising prices put housing further out of reach for low-income people and market changes such as Airbnb affected supply. Ms Hickey said she was worried the Government had not prepared for a repeat of the influx of homeless people to the Hobart showgrounds last winter.

“We have been in government for five years, what have we done?

“We should be committing to have a world’s best practice housing trial to show the world how it is done.”

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A boarded up broken door at Windsor Court public housing in Glenorchy. Picture: LUKE BOWDEN

In a Talking Point article in Thursday’s Mercury, Ms Hickey calls for the Government to consider delaying all infrastructure funding for a year and spend the money in a blitz on the housing crisis.

She does not believe the “spin” about a massive boost in public housing construction, which even if it was met would be inadequate to significantly cut the waiting list.

“The Government says it is building 900 houses. Despite constant requests for the actual numbers delivered against those promised, I am left in the dark, despite being a member of the Government,” Ms Hickey writes.

“Of major concern to me has been the change in language. Way back in July 2018, the Government promised 900 homes to be built by June 2019 with 500-plus to be in the greater Hobart region.

“Sometime later, the language changed to 941 houses and ‘lots’.

“A block of land is not shelter. It appears that this target of 900 houses to be constructed was more media spin than reality, with a lot less homes to built by the end of June 2019.

“So far there have been only 236 homes constructed as at the end of December 2018.”