Tasmania's housing and homelessness crisis remains a low priority for the Hodgman Liberal Government with its own targets unlikely to be met and thousands of Tasmanians facing a bleak winter.
Liberal Speaker Sue Hickey has laid clear that the Government has done nothing in five years to address the housing crisis.
Shadow Housing Minister Alison Standen said as the government today released its latest glossy brochure on what it claimed was a housing action plan, Minister Roger Jaensch must provide an honest and comprehensive update of how many actual properties had been built since last July when he committed to 900 new homes by this June.
"By December only 236 homes had been built and Mr Jaensch should today be telling Tasmanians how many of the remaining 660 have now been completed," Ms Standen said.
"Rather than releasing yet another glossy brochure, Mr Jaensch and Premier Hodgman need to be honest about whether they will genuinely reach their own target.
"Even members of the Hodgman Government are calling out how little has been done since the Liberals came to power.
"The fact is thousands of Tasmanians are in desperate situations and are facing a bleak winter because this government just does not consider public housing a priority.
"With such a demonstrable lack of progress in building new homes committed to in the Stage One of their Action Plan, Tasmanians can have no confidence in this Minister's ability to deliver on a further 1500 new social housing homes.
"Mr Jaensch needs also to release the latest housing quarterly report to give a clear picture on the housing affordability and homelessness situation.
"The situation has become worse, not better as Premier Hodgman and Minister Jaensch promised more than a full year ago at the hastily convened talkfest they called a housing summit.
"More than 3200 Tasmanians are on the public housing waiting list with an average wait time of more than a year and 1600 Tasmanians are homeless on any given night – Premier Hodgman and Minister Jaensch need to get serious and address a very serious problem."
Alison Standen MP
Shadow Housing Minister
