I hope that look on Minister for Housing, Peter Tinley’s face above isn’t about winging it at today’s media conference to launch “Bentley 360”, the City of Canning’s premium new precinct. Under tough media questioning he’s just announced there will be “no net loss of public housing” in the largest remodelled infill project in Perth!
Given that the site housed circa 450 state govt-owned homes, from stand-alone to terrace housing, small apartment blocks to giant towers until recently, that equates to a whopping 30% of the expected new 1500 homes being for those on the lowest of incomes!
Go Minister Tinley! His declaration smashes the State’s target that 1 in 9 new houses built with its involvement be “affordable housing”.
(It will probably pan out to be “smart partnerships across the government, private sector and not-for-profit organisations”, which means state housing, shared-equity or Keystart opportunities and community partnerships will be the go – but there is also the unexpected boom in the construction industry in provision of housing for people with disabilities, thanks to the NDIS coming online. Mr Tinley was quoted recently as saying ” disability housing is hard to do”. Not anymore, Minister!)
Minister’s media release on Bentley 360 HERE
Mr Tinley faced a few surprises of his own at the media conference, being asked why the twin towers, refurbished at huge cost from 2005 to 2010, were being knocked down eight years later (more to come).
Then there’s the question mark hanging over the first portion of land from the area sold off – theoretically – to a small but savvy developer that seems to have wrested control from the City of Canning and it remains unclear if the City has even been paid the $7m it was promised in 2016.
The Minister was diplomatic on the issue – but Canning has a serious problem on its hands (more to come).
There is one more fly in the ointment here – the housing of the future is contingent on the City of Canning finally releasing the reserves its holds in the area back to the state.
It’s why Ministers Tinley and Saffioti are being very complimentary about a local govt, and especially a set of councillors who played no real role in this redevelopment, nor were known to treat those who lived on the site as residents, rather than just the publicly housed (sole exception former, now returned Councillor Graham Barry).
They’d really, really like those reserves now please!
Three CEOs, and four sets of councils (if you include two sets of commissioners appointed to Canning whilst it was under suspension) have dragged these negotiations out for YEARS, one way or another and the latest CEO, Arthur Kyron, took it back to square one.
At the time of today’s media conference, negotiations still haven’t concluded.
Canning Accountability 
Having been involved in public housing for over 20 years in my earlier career, there are easier solutions to the public housing crisis if the government is to be serious about the eligibility criteria. There are numerous welfare recipients within the public housing scheme who have made an art out of becoming permanent residents as distinct from it being a temporary measure to transition into the private sector.
The amount of misinformation and situations where people declare that they are single parents but have full time defactos living in situ was blatant and widespread. The concept of public housing has been somewhat warped and in its current form encourages a culture of abuse and permanency. Annual income reviews need to be taken into account but most importantly if someone is eligible at the time of entry, it doesn’t mean they are eligible for the rest of their life. They should be put under the same regime of responsibility that any tenant in the private sector has regarding the care and respect of the property.
The quality of housing we are currently building for public housing in some cases is as good as, if not better than that which is purchased by individuals in the private sector who have to make sacrifices and pay full market rents. The reason for the backlog is that we are encouraging people to believe they have entitlements to a free ride when in fact it is a privilege and should be seen as a stepping stone into the so called “real world”.
Over the last 10 years I have read a number of articles where some Ministers have endeavoured to sell off public housing where the value of land is excessive to that which makes public housing sense. Public housing in places like Mosman Park, etc with river views, is hardly something that can be considered to be a necessity. There should be a strong understanding that public housing should not have a strong influence in any precinct but be restricted in percentage whereby the private sector is the dominant representative group, thereby ensuring that people who invest their hard earned money, don’t end up in enclaves where the value of their property is depreciated by tenants with complete disregard with normal standards of behaviour.
It seems in my lifetime that we are slowly moving towards socialist way of life where the incentive to improve and challenge ones ability is being diminished. At the time when working within the public housing scheme, the greatest frustration was the amount of rorting that was known but without the necessary resources to bring justice to bear.
Governments of all persuasions are loathed to get involved in public housing as they are a significant proportion of the voting vase and as we all know, the number one priority for any member of government is to get re-elected.
The longer governments pander to the entitled poor, the problem will not go away but simply exponentially grow in numbers and increase the burden on those in society who work, contribute and employ they rest of the population.
The welfare burden in Australia is well beyond what can be afforded and we will eventually make this country no different to Greece and other similar countries where the government economy is greater than the private sector generator. I wasn’t a great economist at school. What I did learn is that if you want a society to prosper, you must have people contributing to the overall economic pie.
Cheers
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Spot on, once all the people who intend to spend their lives abusing the system have been kicked out, then the people who are currently on the waiting list (and out on the streets) and actually want to make something of their lives, can move in. But no, they can’t, because of Indigenous Affairs sitting around and encouraging Indigenous Australians to blame everyone else for their problems. And because, when they are out on the streets they aren’t very pleasant to everyone, they get given a house, perpeptually trash it, and everyone just has to pay, and put up with it. (Oh, wait I can’t say that, its not politically correct).
Nowadays, if you want to build a multi-million dollar apartment bulding, with million dollar apartments and river views, you have to include a certain amount of public housing. So, the domestically violent, meth-addicted, drug dealing, theiving alcoholics, get the million dollar apartment, and the neighbours just have to put up with it. Plus, even when they do complain, nothing happens, ever.
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Excellent comment, public housing has become “a sense of entitlement”, having dealt with public housing for 30 years I believe it should be based on a points system, whereby the user who destroys, disrupts they go down in housing type and when they look after the property and social surrounds they are awarded points lifting them up in the system. When people receive free housing a large number do not appreciate what they have and subsequently adopt “a sense of entitlement”. Having large amounts of public housing at locations like North Fremantle where public housing is right next to the river and close to the beach there is no incentive to ever leave and there is no appreciation. I pity any person who has public housing next to them or in their street, here in Bicton we now have basically a “Bermuda Triangle” of public housing which is having an extremely disastrous negative affect on the surrounding residents, as you pointed you it is the worst of Socialism, people are rewarded for failure.
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