Page 1177 - Week 07 - Tuesday, 22 August 1989
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .
Now, I turn to the SAAP funding agreement. The position of homeless youth, the position of the housing crisis in this Territory, is not being adequately addressed. I invite the Chief Minister to walk down to Garema Place and other places and talk to the community groups, the service receivers, in this area. There is no proper coordination of the youth homeless situation in this Territory. This Government is proposing to cancel utterly a foster home scheme.
MR SPEAKER: Order! Mr Collaery, your time has expired.
MR DUBY (5.07): Phrases like "the first hundred days" and this sort of malarky, are very reminiscent of things like the "Paris Commune" or perhaps the "Reign of Terror", or the "Thousand-Year Reich". What exactly are we trying to get at with this "hundred days"? We have got a list here of 41 items about which this Government says, "Isn't it fantastic; we have got these 41 items that we have achieved". I have had a look through them. Of the 41 items, 14 are asterisked.
Mr Kaine: Fifteen.
MR DUBY: Fifteen, is it? You are better at figures than I am, Mr Kaine. Fifteen of them are asterisked as relying on the passing by this very Assembly of the program in the budget. Another 16 of them, by my calculation, are things that would have occurred anyway, whether we had self-government or not. I can assure the Minister for Housing and Urban Services, when I notice things like "opened the Woden Office of the ACT Housing Trust", that there has been one there for five years. All it did was move 100 yards, and she has opened the office at Woden to let people get a better place. There is a whole number of other items here. One is the announcement of the replacement of public houses and the Melba Flats. We have known that was coming for years. There is nothing new in that. There is no great achievement in that.
But let us give credit where credit is due. There are some achievements in this statement which are genuine achievements.
Mr Kaine: Can you find one?
MR DUBY: Yes, I can, Mr Kaine. I think it is terrific that we have had to announce our pecuniary interests, because I know everyone has wanted to know for a long time how much money you have. Let us face it; that is a genuine initiative, as is instituting the policy of 50 per cent representation for women on boards and committees. That is a genuine initiative.
Mr Kaine: It has not happened yet. Ask the Government to tell you one where they have got 50 per cent.
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .