Natasha Griggs (Solomon, Country Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Once again I rise to highlight the disgraceful waste and mismanagement and the economic vandalism carried out by the Gillard Labor government in my electorate. I raise again the issue of the RAAF Base Eaton houses that are still sitting there vacant, rotting and wasting away, all because the Gillard Labor government is too pig-headed and too out of touch with Territorians to do the right thing and help alleviate some of the pressure of the current Top End housing crisis. It is important to know that in my electorate the median rental price in December 2012 was $650 a week, yet the Gillard Labor government does not seem to care about families or housing affordability in the Territory. If it did, it would not let these RAAF base houses remain empty, would it?

For almost four years, the member for Fong Lim and I have been working together to make the Rudd-Gillard Labor governments see some sense and make these RAAF base houses available to Territorians. It is incredible to think that for almost four years the Minister for Veterans' Affairs, Minister for Defence Science and Personnel, Minister for Indigenous Health and Minister Assisting the Prime Minister on the Centenary of ANZAC, a fellow Territorian, Minister Snowdon, has not been able to see sense and make these houses available for Territorians. He has demonstrated again and again how out of touch he is with Territorians. He has heard their pleas and anguish over the blatant economic mismanagement of these taxpayer funded resources, but he chooses to ignore them.

No-one I speak to can see the logic that, in the middle of a housing crisis, over 200 houses are sitting there unused and vacant. As I have said so many times before, these houses are now rotting away. The Deputy Leader of the Opposition, the shadow minister for defence and the shadow minister for veterans' affairs were in Darwin recently and they saw firsthand the utter waste and economic vandalism that the Gillard Labor government is condoning. They were shocked at the blatant waste of taxpayer funded resources. They saw for themselves that these houses that many Territorians would give anything to live in; they know that these RAAF base houses are no different to houses in the northern suburbs. These houses in the northern suburbs are in high demand—very high demand.

These RAAF base houses sit vacant despite the fact that this parliament passed unanimously my private member's motion in 2011 which called on the Gillard Labor government to excise the houses from Defence so that they could be made available to Territorians. Yet they are still sitting there—vacant rotting away day by day. The incompetent handling of this very important local issue in my electorate by the Gillard Labor government is shameful, disgusting and outrageous. The Labor government thinks by removing houses, as it did in the Coonawarrra Naval Base, that the problem is solved.

Last week I saw what the government considers a solution—26 of the 40 houses removed from Coonawarra base are sitting in a vacant block, also rotting away. The Labor government promised that these houses would be used a solution to affordable housing in Darwin. Yet, four years later, 65 per cent of these houses removed are not being used. It is a disgrace. Minister Snowdon is patting himself on the back for a job well done. We know he has issued a tender to remove 200 houses from the Eaton RAAF base, just as they did with the Coonawarra houses. This is despite the fact that none of these houses is being used effectively by Territorians to ease the housing crisis.

This Labor government is out of touch and out of control. There is no doubt that this Gillard Labor government is wasteful and should be held accountable for its economic vandalism. Removing houses off Defence bases simply because they are Defence assets and not DHA assets is not good enough. We have heard excuse after excuse as to why these houses in this ready made suburb cannot be used by Territorians. Let me tell you, Territorians want to be able to access these houses. They do not want to see them rotting away. Why can't this government do the right thing by Territorians and make these houses available?