Successive Tasmanian Liberal
Government Ministers responsible for housing failed to act to assist Tasmanians
now at risk of homelessness as properties exit the National Rental Affordability
Scheme (NRAS).
The responsibility for supporting
these tenants rests with the state government which has known these
arrangements were ending since they took office in 2014.
Current Rockliff-Ferguson
Government Housing Minister Guy Barnett has today admitted in Estimates
Hearings that he has only in the past fortnight made representations to the new
Albanese Labor Government in relation to NRAS tenants and neither he nor any of
the previous state Liberal Housing Ministers contacted the former Morrison
Liberal Government which was responsible for abolishing the scheme.
Additionally, Mr Barnett said he
had no information about whether his predecessors and former Housing Ministers
Petrusma, Jaensch and Ferguson, had tried to liaise with their former Liberal
colleagues in Canberra over the past eight years.
It’s become clear successive
Tasmanian Liberal Governments and Housing Ministers including Mr Barnett in
fact did nothing until the sad plight of a group of elderly NRAS tenants in
Kingston confronted them in the Parliament.
The fact is a further 53 families
and tenants in NRAS homes will exit the scheme this year. More will follow next
year.
These are Tasmanians at real risk
of homelessness and this is the fourth Tasmanian Liberal Housing Minister to
fail to act in a realistic time frame.
Mr Barnett cannot even guarantee
they will be eligible for the Tasmanian Government’s Private Rental Incentive
Scheme.
In the midst of an unprecedented housing crisis, the Rockliff-Ferguson Government must guarantee that Tasmanians are not evicted into homelessness.
Ella Haddad
Shadow Minister for Housing
