00:00Like many states and territories around Australia, we have a dashboard that helps Tasmanians
00:06understand whether we're making progress or indeed falling behind when it comes to the
00:11provision of public housing.
00:13And on Friday, the latest figures came out for September of this year.
00:18And you can see a straight line between September of last year and month by month by month over
00:23the last 12, a significant increase in the number of people considered category one in
00:29public housing, so the highest level of need, a significant increase, somewhere around
00:3410% growth in the demand for public housing in Tasmania.
00:39And given the work and the talk and the strategy around trying to reduce this waiting list,
00:44that big increase over 12 months has caught a lot of people by surprise.
00:48Like other states and territories, a mix of 14 years ago or so, trying to increasingly
00:55involve the not-for-profit sector in the provision and management of public housing.
01:01The argument went that if the not-for-profit sector got more heavily involved, maybe managing
01:05some of the existing public housing stock, that they might be better able to leverage
01:09that value.
01:10They might be able to use their balance sheets to actually finance the building of more public
01:16housing.
01:16They might be able to provide the wraparound services that so many people in public housing
01:21need to go and help along with their day-to-day lives.
01:25Also, the argument went, if the not-for-profit sector was involved, they would have better
01:29access, in fact, they would have access in ways the state doesn't, to the national affordability,
01:35rental affordability housing scheme, and be able to leverage off this federal government
01:39support as well.
01:40So that's part of it.
01:41And then also, a few years ago now, the Tasmanian government, the Liberal government, been in
01:45power for 11 years, said, hey, rather than managing housing out of a government
01:51department, inside the bureaucracy, with a minister or ministers having oversight, why
01:56don't we outsource this management to a statutory authority?
02:00And so they created Homes Tasmania.
02:02And this body's been up and going for a good couple of years plus, and there's now criticism
02:06of the efforts they've gone to in actually delivering houses that provide shelter for people
02:12that badly need it.
02:13So there's questions now about whether these models are working.
02:16Maybe we need to go back to the future and look at the state managing public housing as
02:21it used to.
02:22If you're standing still on your income in Tasmania at the moment, while house prices
02:26rise significantly, and while rentals cost more and more and more, that's if you can
02:32find one, then you're going backwards.
02:35So more and more people who are simply standing still are finding themselves driven into that
02:40cohort of Tasmanians who simply cannot afford to find a rental.
02:44The Tasmanian Council of Social Services have their own dashboard, and they had a look at
02:49how many Tasmanians on a fixed disability pension can afford a rental in Tasmania in 2025.
02:57The percentage is zero percent.
03:00Nobody on a fixed income, a disability pension, can find anywhere they can afford to live unless
03:06they get the support of groups like Housing Tasmania or the not-for-profit sector.
03:10So we've got the fact that house prices have gone up appreciably, the fact that rentals
03:17cost more and more.
03:18We've got the fact that more properties are being moved into the short-stay accommodation
03:22market as well.
03:23And then just the difficulty for those that do want to build in trying to build affordably
03:28because of the inflation in building materials and just finding the land that they can build
03:32on.
03:33All of these things contributing to what is a worsening problem in Tasmania.
03:40That's a lot of people watching.
03:41I'm going to see a lot of things that we have all of them.
03:42I'm going to see a lot of things that we need to work off.
03:43So this started in, I think, a lot of things are common to me, and these are things that
03:45ć
±ćć who are currently running for the next day.
03:46So I'm going to see a lot of things that are, in my opinion, these are things that have
03:48been an eye care for the next month.
03:49And then they can also be conducted by a few days later.
03:50And then they can go through the next month and they can only do the next day.
03:52And they can only consider an eye care for the amount of clients, they can come through
03:53and then they can be done with us.
03:54So that's going through, you can the next day.
03:56So we can have a lot of clients that I like the money as well.
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