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Legislative Council - Fifty-Fourth Parliament, Second Session (54-2)
2021-09-21 Daily Xml
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Public Housing

The Hon. J.S. LEE (14:55): My question is to the Minister for Human Services—

The Hon. R.P. Wortley: Are you going to have two speeches?

The PRESIDENT: Order, the Hon. Mr Wortley!

The Hon. K.J. Maher interjecting:

The PRESIDENT: And the leader!

The Hon. J.S. LEE: Are you finished?

The PRESIDENT: The Hon. Jing Lee has the call.

The Hon. J.S. LEE: My question is to the Minister for Human Services regarding housing. Can the minister provide an update to the council about how the Marshall Liberal government is exploring new ways of allocating people to public housing properties?

The Hon. J.M.A. LENSINK (Minister for Human Services) (14:55): I thank the honourable member for her question. Indeed, I note that the Labor Party was fascinated by this new policy quite recently so I thought I might provide them with a bit of an update because I know that this is a topic that they were deeply interested in.

Indeed, in relation to allocations generally, the number of people on the category 1 waiting list has gone down under the Liberal government—gone down significantly. The total waiting list for category 1, 2 and 3 was I think over 20,000 when Labor took office. It's now down to 16,600, in that order. The people in most urgent need—category 1 people—has gone down from something like 4,200 to a bit over 3,000, so we are looking after vulnerable people who are at risk of homelessness far better than Labor ever did and they need to be reminded of that.

Indeed, in relation to the new allocation trial policy, it aims to help people who are on the waiting list for public housing to get into a property much sooner. This is the trial, you would remember, Mr President, where rather than the extended and convoluted process that we have at the moment where one house is offered to one household at a time, it can then be rejected and go through this multiple times before somebody accepts the property—we also have properties, particularly walk-up flats and cottage flats, which are less popular with people.

Within days of announcing the trial, we successfully housed four people. We had four separate households looking at various properties. Two accepted the properties. I understand that some acceptances were withdrawn, but ultimately the four households accepted properties, which means that people who have now come off the waiting list are in public housing and getting on with their lives. So we welcome this policy. It's been broadly welcomed by a lot of people in the community, by many people, except the Labor Party.

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