PUBLIC HOUSING — NUMBER
502. Mr P.J. RUNDLE to the Minister for Housing:
I
have a supplementary question. I thank the minister for that response. Can the
minister clarify for me what actually happens to those 422 properties
that are not returning?
Mr J.N.
CAREY replied:
As I explained, they can be part of the
renewal projects. For example, Subi East has vacant community or social housing
that is beyond repair. It is the intention of the government to do a major new
renewal that will actually deliver more social housing in the total Subiaco
precinct. Where we do have voids, they can be part of the renewal programs.
They may be demolished, but because they are on such a large block, we can
build three units. It does not make sense if it is beyond repair and
refurbishment. I want to put this on the record because it is important: what
we have seen from the opposition is a complete distortion of the data on the
vacancies. I read what Steve Martin said. He said —
� we discovered there were 1 800
vacant social houses —
The SPEAKER: Sorry, member.
Are you referring to the member in the other place?
Mr J.N. CAREY: Yes, Hon Steve
Martin.
The SPEAKER: Excellent. That
is a great improvement.
Mr J.N. CAREY: He said —
� we discovered there were about
1,800 social houses � vacant. Now, that appears to be twice as many from a year
ago. There was a media report � of about 900, so � it's doubled � and
if you look at the numbers � the numbers don't lie.
However, the member got it wrong. He
did not compare the same data statistics. The number of vacancies did not
double. The member for Vasse said there are 1 000 rough sleepers on the
streets. That is wrong. The member for Cottesloe said there were over 500 rough
sleepers on the streets. Again, we need to refer to the Ruah data, which says
that there are 280 rough sleepers on the streets. We do not want to see any
rough sleepers, but there are clear datasets. The opposition is deliberately
going out of its way to distort basic data. But it gets worse. Opposition members dropped to the lowest of the low, claiming
that I am personally responsible for 100 homeless deaths—the member for
Cottesloe made that claim on Twitter. This is what we are seeing from the
opposition. It will use any means possible to distort data like the member for
Vasse, like the upper house member, Hon Steve Martin, and like the member for
Cottesloe did. It is simply getting basic facts wrong on housing and
homelessness. The homelessness sector knows this: I take this responsibility
absolutely seriously. We are using every lever we can to accelerate the
delivery of social housing and we are making a substantial investment of $225 million
in homelessness this year.