Public Housing

The Hon. T.T. NGO (15:22): Could the minister confirm public comments by her agency that an average of just 170 public housing properties will be built per year in coming years compared to the annual demolition of 300 and annual sales of 150?

The Hon. J.M.A. LENSINK (Minister for Human Services) (15:23): This is one of those glass jaw questions the Labor Party keep asking about where they reached a high in, I think, 2014 of selling somewhere between 500 and 600 properties as part of their budget needs for whoever the Labor Treasurer at the time was, to cannibalise the Housing Trust stock so that they could fund other things in other parts of the budget, and placed the asset viability program in the forward estimates, which we have managed to cut. We have significantly reduced that. In fact, according to our own business plan we are doing 77 per cent better than Labor. We have managed to significantly reduce the number of properties that are needing to be part of the viability sales.

The advice I have received from my agency is that we expect to build 192 new public housing properties in this current financial year, so we have drastically reduced the asset destruction that took place under the Labor Party, where they not only sold houses to prop up their budget, they reduced the maintenance budget and they ran down the cash balance. So I will not be lectured by the Labor Party on the management of the Housing Trust which, if they wish to, they could read—

The Hon. I.K. Hunter interjecting:

The PRESIDENT: Order, the Hon. Mr Hunter!

The Hon. J.M.A. LENSINK: I will send Mr Hunter a copy of the triennial review and he can read about the destruction—

The PRESIDENT: And pointing is out of order.

The Hon. J.M.A. LENSINK: —of Housing Trust assets under his incompetent government.

Members interjecting:

The PRESIDENT: Order! The time for questions has expired.