Page 293 - Week 02 - Tuesday, 12 May 1992
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Government acknowledge that it does not have all the answers. Let us see the Government taking bold steps to significantly effect savings so that it can have the services in the ACT that are of greater importance to the employment of so many in desperate need.
MR CONNOLLY (Attorney-General, Minister for Housing and Community Services and Minister for Urban Services) (9.38): Madam Speaker, we have heard in the last few minutes a true admission of a Liberal Party agenda; an agenda that they never had the guts to admit during the election campaign; an agenda that they denied. Last week, when the public housing waiting lists were announced, these poseurs opposite were out there ranting and raving and saying, "We have to do more for public housing". The Liberal Party have always tried to squirm out of that. When they have said that we should sell public housing, they have always said, "But we will buy more; we acknowledge that the Commonwealth-State Housing Agreement commits us to buy more". That is what they always said during the campaign.
What Mr Westende said was that the Liberal Party should reduce the existing public housing stock, which runs at about 12 per cent and is a proud achievement for this Territory. He said that it should be closer to the 5 per cent in the rest of Australia. I asked him what we should do with the proceeds of the sale and he said, "Use it to pay off the public debt". That is an extraordinary admission from the Liberal Party. We are seeing the real privatisation agenda. What about all these statements they have been making in the past, saying, "We really are committed to public housing; we accept the Commonwealth-State Housing Agreement; we accept that we are legally obliged to return any income from sales to public housing"? Mr Westende has proved that that was all a charade.
The Leader of the Opposition has to clarify whether the Liberal Party really stands by what it has previously espoused or whether Mr Westende has let the cat out of the bag. I can assure you, Madam Speaker, that I will be writing to every constituent who writes to me about public housing and enclosing the precise extract from Hansard where Mr Westende demanded that we slash by a half the number of public housing units. It is a very easy set of mathematics. Even the Liberal Party can understand this. There are 100,000 housing units, roughly, in Canberra, and 12,000 roughly equates to 12 per cent, as Mr Westende said. He wants us to get to 5 per cent, which equates to 5,000. What he wants us to do is to flog off 7,000 public housing units and not replace them.
Mr Kaine: Rubbish!
MR CONNOLLY: That is what he said.
Mr De Domenico: He did not say that.
MR CONNOLLY: It is exactly what he said. I gave him the opportunity to worm out of it. I gave him the opportunity to retract from that position, but he said, "No, we want to use the money to pay off the public debt". What about the houses in Greenway, where we all sat around today and said, "Yes, we all agree with integration; we are all outraged by what was said"? I wonder whether he wants to flog those off as well and not replace them.
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