Page 1656 - Week 08 - Thursday, 28 September 1989
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finance houses have begun to recognise the advantages of providing such services of their own, and the marketplace will dictate that more and more institutions follow the trend. Government spending is unnecessary, and we told the Government precisely that during the budget consultations.
We believe Ms Follett should look to the Victorian experience, where the Government agrees to underwrite certain business proposals by women. This should be progressively introduced here, initially in a pilot scheme involving government guarantees for loans provided by finance houses, rather than direct capital payments by the Territory. Such schemes provide real promise for the future of women in the Territory, but we are forced to ask again how much of Ms Follett's women's budget is any more than window dressing.
The women's budget proudly puts forward for all to see the positive steps this Government wants to take for women. The summary is just a little too convenient. After all, we have to remember that around 50 per cent of the school population and of the population requiring health facilities are women. Where are they accounted for in describing the budget's effect on women? Where are the lost jobs for those women working in health and education accounted for? Budget paper No. 9 refuses to come clean on what is being taken away from women. It does not allow us to balance the cuts, the reduced services and the lost jobs against the initiatives Ms Follett is spending money on and decide whether women are any better off. This fiscal sleight of hand smacks of the old paternalism which was practised by earlier generations of male politicians. It assumes that women should be protected from the truth and that they will willingly allow the wool to be pulled over their eyes; they will not. It is not only a shame but also a sad irony that Ms Follett has put this budget paper into effect.
The Government's treatment of our homeless youth is also open to question. (Extension of time granted)
The supported accommodation assistance program is a positive and useful step, even if its contribution to the problem is only partial anywhere in Australia. The ACT will, no doubt, benefit from contact with the Commonwealth and the States and all the resources and experience that they have to offer to the processes of planning and developing initiatives. But the Follett Government seems to be content to hang onto the Commonwealth's coat-tails and to make adjustments to Housing Trust policies only. We do not see before us in this budget any commitment to specific initiatives falling outside the supported accommodation assistance program from the Commonwealth and the provision of Housing Trust paternalism.
The measures announced by Minister Grassby yesterday in respect of relieving homelessness amongst Canberra's youth are, to the extent to which they come from her portfolio
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