Page 3342 - Week 10 - Wednesday, 19 October 2022
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(b) Senator Katy Gallagher campaigned to waive the ACT Government’s $98.3 million housing debt during the 2022 Federal election campaign;
(c) Senator Katy Gallagher in Senate Estimates on 22 October 2019 said to Senator Seselja as Assistant Minister for Finance, in respect to waiving the ACT’s historic housing debt, “you’re in a position of power. You get to sign it off.”;
(d) Chief Minister Andrew Barr stated on 24 October 2019, “I would observe that it is an odd state of affairs when a crossbench senator from Tasmania can achieve more through Liberal Government than an ACT Liberal senator who is a member of the government executive as an assistant minister, Senator Seselja”; and
(e) now as Labor Finance Minister, Senator Katy Gallagher on 12 October said “the Federal Government is not in a position to waive the Territory’s $98.3 million historic housing debt”; and
(3) calls on:
(a) the leaders of all parties represented in the Assembly to write to the Finance Minister condemning in the strongest terms her backflip on her pre-election promise and call on the Finance Minister to waive the historic ACT housing debt; and
(b) table this correspondence, and any response received by the Finance Minister, in the Legislative Assembly by Thursday 24 November 2022.
The core of this motion is the premise that the government cannot have it both ways. The long-term $100 million housing debt was so desperately important—it was so important, when Scott Morrison was the Prime Minister, when Zed Seselja was an ACT senator and in those years. This was one of the most important things in this space, according to Labor and the Greens. They were being held back by the evil LNP. It was the federal Liberals that were stopping the ACT from reaching its potential. It was the uncaring conservatives who were stopping the ACT from reaching its potential in the housing space. All of a sudden, it is not so important. All of a sudden, these matters are outside our control. It reeks of the most extreme political hypocrisy and it must be called out.
We know that in September 2019 the Chief Minister and Minister Berry wrote to the Prime Minister and the federal housing minister, asking them to waive this debt. We have had a number of conversations about this. I have stated publicly that, during the last term and into this term, I have had a number of conversations with Senator Seselja and with other federal Liberal members and ministers, endeavouring to bring about this outcome.
In February 2020 Mr Barr made a statement regarding the housing debt and regarding the commonwealth’s move to set aside Tasmania’s own state housing debt. I will remind Mr Barr of what he said:
It is entirely untenable for the Commonwealth to do one special deal with Tasmania and leave the rest of the country out. That just won’t stand politically.
That is what Mr Barr said a little over two years ago. It is why, I would have thought, the Chief Minister must support this motion in its original form. It seems that that is not the case.
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