Minister breaks key public housing commitment

The Liberal Government has broken a key commitment when it comes to public housing.

Shadow Human Services Minister Rebecca White said the Liberals have missed a deadline.

“The Human Services Minister’s Affordable Housing Strategy commits the Government to releasing details about the transfer of public housing properties and call for expressions of interest by the end of October,”Ms White said.

“It is now November and the Tasmanian public is none the wiser about the Government’s intention to privatise public housing.

“The Minister has failed to provide any details about what evidence the Government is relying on to justify the decision to give away 500 public housing properties.

“The Minister has failed to provide any details about what modelling has been done to understand how 150 properties can be built if 500 public housing properties are given away.

“The Minister’s own Affordable Housing Action Plan has changed since it was released. The version now available on website is significantly different to the document tabled in the parliament, suggesting that the whole process has been terribly rushed to give the Minister some good news to announce when she was struggling to manage other matters in her portfolio, specifically the crisis in child protection.

“The website for the Affordable Housing strategy states that in the first year of the transfer $500,000 will be spent to incentivise the initiative and that 30 houses will be built. The plan provides for a total of $2m over 4 years for this initiative which suggests that only 120 houses will be built, not 150. This again calls into question what modelling the Government is relying on to make the claim that the decision to give away 500 public housing properties will help leverage the construction of 150 new homes.

“There is no transparency around this process.

“Perhaps the Minister has recalled the concerns she raised herself in Estimates about the risks of transferring the title of public housing properties and has put a halt to the process. We would welcome this and suggest that this is the best course of action in order to give time for full and proper consultation with the people of Tasmania about the Liberal Government’s plan to privatise public housing.”
Rebecca White MP Shadow Human Services Minister