17 August 2015 - ABC PM
Angela Lavoipierre, Mark Colvin
Transcript
Mark Colvin: No-one actually wants to live next door to a criminal.
But in public housing, what system should decide whether a family of someone convicted of a crime lose the roof over their heads?
The New South Wales Government has introduced a bill to make it easier to evict public housing tenants who break the law.
There are fears that the move could drive up homelessness.
Lawyers say the new bill removes vital checks and balances in the existing system.
Angela Lavoipierre reports.
Angela Lavoipierre: Jenny - not her real name - is one of 280,000 public housing tenants in New South Wales.
She lives with her teenage daughter in a unit in inner Sydney, but she's had to fight to keep it.
Last year, Jenny received a notice of eviction in the mail, because her former partner, who's now in prison, had been dealing drugs.
Jenny: They were accusing me of driving him around and helping him deal drugs, which was not true. I didn't know what he was doing, I thought he might have been using again, but I didn't know that he was selling heroin.
Angela Lavoipierre: Jenny, a victim of domestic violence and a recovering heroin addict, says she tried to make her partner leave for her daughter's sake.
Jenny: Every day it was an argument with him. I'd be yelling at him for hours, telling him to get out of my house. I was telling him the risks that he was causing me, he just telling me to shut up, not to worry, that that wouldn't happen, so no, I didn't have any control at all over anything.
Angela Lavoipierre: She explained the situation to a tribunal and was allowed her to keep her home.
But tenancy lawyer Natalie Bradshaw says under the changes being proposed by the New South Wales Government, her client would have been homeless.
Natalie Bradshaw: The consequences for Jenny, if the tribunal didn't have its discretion, would have been devastating.
Angela Lavoipierre: She says the proposed changes would stop the tenancy tribunal from being able to consider the impact of eviction on the tenant.
Natalie Bradshaw: At the moment the tribunal can take those things into consideration and definitely put in that expert witness, a psychiatrist saying my client would likely end up dead if they were homeless, is powerful evidence to put before a tribunal to consider in making that decision to use their discretion.
Angela Lavoipierre: Natalie Bradshaw says there are already provisions in the law for criminals to be kicked out of taxpayer funded housing.
Natalie Bradshaw: At the moment the tribunal can evict people for serious criminal conduct, and they most certainly do. What we have at the moment, it works, and so we don't need to change it.
By removing some of those safeguards, what we're actually doing is putting vulnerable and disadvantaged people at risk of homelessness and we're not necessarily just attacking criminal serious conduct.
Angela Lavoipierre: The New South Wales Opposition shares Ms Bradshaw's concerns, and is proposing amendments to the bill.
Labor's Social Housing spokeswoman Tania Mihailuk.
Tania Mihailuk: We need to think seriously about removing the tribunal's discretion to prevent unintended outcomes that may occur. There will be circumstances where innocent parties to a tenancy agreement, family members for example, will end up being responsible for the action of others. And potentially be put out on the street.
Angela Lavoipierre: The Minister for Social Housing Brad Hazzard.
Brad Hazzard: There of course a mechanism in place, but it often doesn't work. And the reason it doesn't work is that up until now there's been no legislative guidance on what the community expectations are.
Angela Lavoipierre: He says the Government will consider Labor's amendments, but is yet to be convinced they're necessary.
Brad Hazzard: This will be a decision by the Parliament that in these circumstances the greater good is to make sure that the public housing tenants who live in the complex will not be exposed to that criminal activity, and that person will be removed, yes that's true. And I have no hesitation about that, because these are very serious criminal matters.
Angela Lavoipierre: Lawyer Natalie Bradshaw believes the changes will lead to an increase in homelessness.
Natalie Bradshaw: Crisis accommodation is already at capacity and taking people who have children is an extra pressure that the system just cannot take. And we have to look at it from a point of where will people who have high needs go?
Angela Lavoipierre: Tania Mihailuk says without amendments the bill won't have Labor's support.
Tania Mihailuk: They're not just suggestions, they're amendments that we expect must be undertaken to make this bill acceptable to the New South Wales Opposition.
Angela Lavoipierre: The bill is due to be debated again next week.
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Listen to the report on the ABC PM website.
