PUBLIC HOUSING

Mr O'BRIEN (Napier) (14:33): My question is to the Minister for Housing. Should public housing tenants be concerned by the federal government's planned changes to the Commonwealth-State Housing Agreement funding arrangements?

The Hon. J.W. WEATHERILL (Cheltenham—Minister for Families and Communities, Minister for Aboriginal Affairs and Reconciliation, Minister for Housing, Minister for Ageing, Minister for Disability, Minister Assisting the Premier in Cabinet Business and Public Sector Management) (14:33): Absolutely, and the member for Napier and his electors have absolutely much to fear by the re-election of a Howard government. In July this year the Howard government minister Mal Brough decided, effectively, that there would be an end to the Commonwealth-State Housing Agreement, which is due to be renegotiated in July 2008. That is a radical departure. There is a 50-year history of a Commonwealth-State Housing Agreement. He wants to take the money that goes into that agreement and, basically, tender it out. So it would no longer go to the states to run their public housing system, but, rather, he wants to hand that over. What will that mean for our public housing tenants? There can only be two outcomes.

An honourable member interjecting:

The Hon. J.W. WEATHERILL: I will be coming to that in a minute. Either there will be an increase in rents, which will be an appalling thing for public housing tenants, or there will have to be a sell-off of even further parts of the public housing stock. We have already been forced to sell off housing to meet our bills because of the 36 per cent reduction in moneys coming into the state since Mr Howard became Prime Minister, and nationally he has slashed $3.1 billion from the system. Not only do we have those massive pressures from falling contributions from the commonwealth, we have also been obliged to target our housing to those in highest need. That means that we get less rent, because those on Centrelink pensions now comprise 85 per cent of our tenants.

The way in which we have had to grapple with that is to engage in an affordable homes program, where we are selling off more homes to try to get the trust into a viable state in a way which creates affordable housing outcomes. We have had a glimpse of the future through the eyes of the Deputy Leader of the Opposition. She said yesterday in her grievance that 3,385 properties were sold during the last financial year. Now, members just need to think about that for a moment—3,385 properties from the public housing system during the last financial year. She said that she was quoting from the Auditor-General's Report.

Well, in fact, that was over the last five years. Maybe she has actually had a glimpse into the future under John Howard, and has realised that the rate of sale of public housing stock will dramatically accelerate over the next period of time. Make no mistake about it, this next federal election is a referendum on the future of the public housing system. For those people who value our public housing system, they have only one viable choice; that is, to ensure that the Howard government is not elected on Saturday.