Page 1578 - Week 06 - Thursday, 3 May 1990
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Now, Mr Deputy Speaker, I want to make some general comments that respond to the ideological mindset of the Opposition. I remind members of the house what the Federal Minister for Community Services and Health, the Hon. Neal Blewett, said in the House of Representatives when he gave the second reading speech on the Commonwealth Housing Assistance Bill 1989. He said that the one reason why the CSHA was being reintroduced, as it were, was that States had been using commercial borrowings to meet their matching requirement, and the resulting debt servicing obligation, combined with a growing rental rebate bill, had been eroding their capacity to fund new public housing.
Let the amount of borrowing that was proposed by the former Chief Minister be recalled. Let us recall the borrowing level that was proposed in the initial budget foray, the tentative one, the one that went out to be debated at large in confusion and in a series of indignation meetings. A few of us understood it earlier on. The fact is that large borrowings have an impact on the poor and those who seek housing. They reflect right back through the budgetary process. We see again the type of contradiction that Labor governments now represent in this country, and that contradiction is that a lot of their policies impact on the poor. We see so many of Federal Labor's initiatives impacting on the poor. Thank God they have an Alliance Government in this Territory at the moment!
Let me give another example. Brian Burdekin, in his excellent report, made a recommendation about measures to increase private sector accommodation, a matter quite relevant to this issue at hand. He recommended, amongst other things, that at all levels of government, as a matter of urgency, we should identify and remove disincentives to the provision of appropriate and affordable rental and boarding house accommodation, particularly for young people. There should be measures to encourage such provisions. The ACT Alliance Government is deeply concerned that the proposed sale of the Gowrie Hostel by the Federal Labor Government is in direct breach of the Brian Burdekin recommendation.
Now, really, you have had a good week this week in the Ainslie tip, but the long-term record will show that the side-valve Labor outfit in the ACT is no better than its Federal Hawke counterpart on those issues.
Ms Follett: What was that?
MR COLLAERY: The Leader of the Opposition wants to know what version of Labor she represents in this Territory. I call it the side-valve Labor Party.
Ms Follett: The which?
MR COLLAERY: The side-valve one. It is about 1954 - - -
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