The Canberra Liberals will call on the ACT government to explain why it made a technical amendment to allow public housing to be built on land zoned for community facilities.
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Deputy leader Nicole Lawder will move a motion when the assembly sits this week asking the government to spell out why it made the amendment and point to community-zoned land where public housing has already been built.
Ms Lawder said the "covert and questionable amendment" allowed the territory government to build public housing in places that would have otherwise been barred in the territory plan, like the blocks in Chapman and Holder earmarked for public housing.
She said the notifiable instrument in 2015 changed the wording, and therefore the meaning of the development code, from supportive housing - taken to mean housing for the elderly and for people with disabilities - to social housing, which broadened the use of the land.
"What this means is that parks and other community facility zoned land all around Canberra may soon be switched over to public housing, given the government's questionable amendment," Ms Lawder said in a statement.
However an ACT government spokesman previously said a new definition for "supportive housing" was introduced in 2011, with the words "by reason of age or disability removed".
In 2015, the government added the words "social housing" to the definition to clarify what the land could be used for, he said.
Public housing has become a divisive and increasingly political issue in Canberra.
Labor has rejected criticism of the public housing proposals as "nimbyism" and as based on unfair stereotypes about the tenants while the Liberals have seized on the community backlash.
Liberal MLA Elizabeth Kikkert will continue her attack on the government's record on child welfare by calling on them to ensure decisions relating to a child's placement and care plans be subject to external review.
Giulia Jones will move a motion on the Bushfire Abatement Zone, asking the government how it is managed during bushfires and bushfire prevention.
Jeremy Hanson will pursue Bec Cody on her tiles gaffe (In February the Labor backbencher blasted a south coast club for have two tiles featuring Indigenous men in the urinal, when it was in fact on the wall of the male bathroom).
- with Kirsten Lawson
