Community Services and Housing Minister Karen Struthers has totally rejected claims made in an advertisement in the Cairns Post.
"There are no secret deals or cost blow-outs in the development at Trinity Park," Ms Struthers said. "If critics of the project are genuine in these extraordinary claims and have a shred of evidence they should take it straight to the CMC which has the powers to investigate.
"The truth is we had applications to build 33,000 dwellings across Queensland and we chose the 4000 that offered the best value for money, created jobs quickly and met current and future social housing needs.

"The development in Trinity Park has a cost of $5.6 million and comes in at $295,000 a unit including land for a turn-key package. "That's within federal government guidelines and below the original offer by the developer.

"What we're building is quality housing for low-income key workers from the hospitality, tourism and health industries as well as people with disabilities and seniors.

"The homes meet contemporary design standards and are six-star energy rated. "You can't do that for $150,000 a unit including land.

"It's also untrue to state that the social housing vacancy rate in the Far North is 14%. "The fact is there are 3399 social housing dwellings in the entire region and on March 31 this year, 100 of them were vacant. "That's the information we gave the opposition.

"That's a vacancy rate of 2.9%, not 14% and I ask anyone to explain how they arrived at that figure. The vacancy rate in the private rental market is around 5%.

"There will always be a certain number of vacancies at any given time due to natural turnover of tenancies and requirements for maintenance and disability modification.

There are more than 1800 people on the social housing register for the entire Far North Region. "Many, many more than could live in 100 dwellings.

"The community needs more housing in Cairns and Cairns needs jobs. That's why we're building in Trinity Park.

"We're meeting an immediate social housing need and creating jobs for builders and tradies," Ms Struthers said.

 22 April 2010