Nearly one in five public housing properties left empty by outgoing tenants in Tasmania are contaminated with methamphetamine, a parliamentary committee has been told.
The revelation came as Housing and Planning Minister Kerry Vincent fronted the committee to explain why Homes Tasmania had 239 dwellings sitting vacant as at March 31 this year.
Vincent told the committee meth contamination was becoming an increasingly serious problem.
“17% end of lease public housing properties test positive for methamphetamine contamination,” je saod/
“The average time to remediate these properties back into service is 285 days. The average cost is $66,000 per dwelling.”
Cleaning up a contaminated property often means ripping out everything inside.
Homes Tasmania interim CEO Ben Wilson said the work could be extensive.
“In a lot of cases, it is stripping of complete internal linings and reinstalling of that, floor coverings, soft furnishings, et cetera and the extent of the issue can become quite large within the property quite quickly,” he said.
Wilson said every property is tested when a tenant moves out.
“I can confirm that there is a physical, there is a test that’s undertaken under every vacate, and unfortunately that’s resulted in about 17% of the properties been detected as positive,” he said.
Of the 239 vacant homes, 49 were going through routine turnover maintenance, while 190 were empty because of fire damage, major works or insurance matters.
Vincent said there had been 13 confirmed arson attacks on public housing this financial year, with two more being investigated.
Routine maintenance between tenants costs around $28,000 per property, climbing to roughly $35,000 when energy efficiency or bathroom upgrades are included.
The committee also heard Homes Tasmania has changed how it handles maintenance work, cutting out the middle layer of head contractors and instead managing a panel of tradespeople directly.
Wilson said the shift had already saved around 10% on costs in southern Tasmania and was being expanded statewide.
Vincent said he understood people struggling to find housing were frustrated by the sight of empty public homes.
“Just because the place is vacant doesn’t mean that Homes Tas aren’t working with it,” he said.
