Published Tuesday, 08 July, 2008 at 05:03 PM
Minister for Public Works, Housing and Information and Communication Technology
The Honourable Robert Schwarten
GOVERNMENT ALREADY WORKING TO ADDRESS EMPLOYEE HOUSING ISSUES
The Queensland Government is already responding to issues concerning maintenance of employee housing with the Department of Public Works coordinating a house-by-house audit, Public Works Minister Robert Schwarten said.
Mr Schwarten was responding to the tabling today of the Auditor-General’s report, which highlighted concerns over maintenance in government-owned housing.
“We are aware of these concerns through our own audits and have been developing strategies to deal with this,” Mr Schwarten said.
“Already, over 90% of houses owned by the Department of Public Works have been audited.
“As a government we have decided to better streamline our employee housing with a new, uniform framework to be development which will cover all aspects from purchase to tenancy management and maintenance.”
Mr Schwarten said DPW had commenced a review of all employee housing in February 2007. This report is due to be considered by Cabinet in September 2008.
He said while the Auditor-General had found that agencies were spending what they should on current maintenance, backlog maintenance was the issue.
“This is an historical fact and can be traced back to the Bjelke-Petersen era where no money was spent on maintaining teachers, police or public servant’s housing,” Mr Schwarten said.
“Try as we might, there have always been greater priorities like new hospitals and police stations, child protection and so on, and this backlog has never been overcome.
“When we report to Cabinet in September, we will have an assessment of every public service house in the state and, as such, it will be the most comprehensive audit ever, which will lay the foundations for fixing this problem.”
Media contact: (07) 3237 1832
Mr Schwarten was responding to the tabling today of the Auditor-General’s report, which highlighted concerns over maintenance in government-owned housing.
“We are aware of these concerns through our own audits and have been developing strategies to deal with this,” Mr Schwarten said.
“Already, over 90% of houses owned by the Department of Public Works have been audited.
“As a government we have decided to better streamline our employee housing with a new, uniform framework to be development which will cover all aspects from purchase to tenancy management and maintenance.”
Mr Schwarten said DPW had commenced a review of all employee housing in February 2007. This report is due to be considered by Cabinet in September 2008.
He said while the Auditor-General had found that agencies were spending what they should on current maintenance, backlog maintenance was the issue.
“This is an historical fact and can be traced back to the Bjelke-Petersen era where no money was spent on maintaining teachers, police or public servant’s housing,” Mr Schwarten said.
“Try as we might, there have always been greater priorities like new hospitals and police stations, child protection and so on, and this backlog has never been overcome.
“When we report to Cabinet in September, we will have an assessment of every public service house in the state and, as such, it will be the most comprehensive audit ever, which will lay the foundations for fixing this problem.”
Media contact: (07) 3237 1832