Australian Capital Territory
Housing Assistance Public rental Housing Assistance Program 2005 (No 2)
Disallowable instrument DI2005–281
made under the  
Housing Assistance Act, 1987, s 12 (1) (Housing Assistance Programs)

EXPLANATORY STATEMENT

Housing Assistance Programs are the policy framework for the provision of public housing. 

In 1989 the Commissioner for Housing made a program called the Public Rental Housing Assistance Program (PRHAP), which has been amended from time to time. In July 2005, PRHAP was re-written to meet modern drafting standards and to provide a complete version of PRHAP for notification on the Legislation register.

This version of PRHAP resolve a number of minor technical issues in the previous version, and makes one substantive change by the addition of clause 20(8A).

Amended Clause 6 (Meaning of Income) puts into effect a recent policy change to deem self-employed persons to be receiving the relevant Centrelink income (rather than an award rate) in appropriate circumstances.

Clause 20(8a) permits the granting a short-term rebates in situations where household income has reduced but is expected to increase again in short period of time. This is to cover eventualities such as industry shutdowns, tenants being breached by Centrelink and suffering an income decrease and similar situations.  To accommodate this change, clause 20(8) has been varied to allow further flexibility in when a new rebated rent comes into effect.