The minority Liberal government appears to be fudging the figures on its housing targets to cover up its failure to build the housing it promised Tasmanians.
Last month, the Housing Minister Nic Street stated that “Homes Tasmania and its community housing partners completed a record 276 new social housing properties in June”.
But in Parliament this morning, Mr Street confirmed that this figure includes at least 47 properties purchased by the government, which were already tenanted on the private market.
And, information gathered by the Labor Party confirms the government has swept dozens more properties and blocks of units off the private market in recent months in a scramble to meet their housing targets.
Mr Street said there would be no “involuntary terminations” of leases on the private properties they have bought up, but that gives little comfort to those tenants who still face the potential termination of their leases when they come to an end.
This is not building, it is potentially displacing existing private tenants and manipulating the figures – and it will do nothing to lift the overall supply of housing. In fact, if anything, it has made it harder and more expensive for homeowners and renters to find somewhere to live.
The Liberals have had 10 years to fix housing in Tasmania and it seems their only achievement is to find new and more desperate ways to fudge the figures in a futile attempt to make themselves look less incompetent
September 12 2023