ACT Greens leader Shane Rattenbury says he backed his Labor Cabinet colleagues on the decision to make the city's biggest community housing provider repay a $50 million loan, to give CHC more "flexibility".
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
The government last year made the housing provider, CHC, start to pay back the $50 million principal on a government loan, at $2.5 million a year, a decision that has, in part, made the provider's future "increasingly difficult".
Mr Rattenbury, who sits in Cabinet for the minor party, has confirmed he supported the decision to force repayments to start last year, the earlier opportunity to do so under the terms of the agreement.
While the loan had to repaid at some point, former Chief Minister Jon Stanhope has criticised the decision to force repayments immediately, saying he would have rolled it over for a further period, an option that was available under the terms of the 50-year financial agreement.
Mr Rattenbury said he agreed to the decision in Cabinet because the decision would "grant greater flexibility to CHC than was contained in the original agreement" and the government was "committed to supporting community housing in the ACT".
But he has declined to explain how forcing the community housing provider to start repaying the loan gave it "greater flexibility", or what that flexibility may entail, with his spokeswoman saying such details were Cabinet-in-confidence.
While CHC chief executive Andrew Hannan previously said the original loan was instrumental in providing more affordable housing for Canberrans, he declined to comment on Mr Rattenbury's explanation for supporting the move.
The former CHC board chairman, Ross Barrett, has also said that while the board understood it was legally a loan, they had also hoped the government would roll it over, should the provider be achieving its aims.
Greens housing spokeswoman Caroline Le Couteur said her understanding was that the loan was "always going to be repaid" and the agreement "as originally struck is being carried out".
She said the CHC board and management would have been aware of the terms and "I assume, planned accordingly".
But Ms Le Couteur said the minor also had "significant concerns about the future provision of affordable housing in the ACT", and last week passed a motion with the Opposition support to set a minimum target of 7.1 per cent of all housing stock for social housing.
