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
