Page 2468 - Week 09 - Thursday, 17 September 1992
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Turning now to the TAFE sector, I join with others in recognising and again applauding the initiatives in this area. However, again it should be pointed out that the 500 additional student places are a result of Commonwealth, not ACT Government, funding. The $70,000 waste management initiative and the $100,000 international hotel management school initiative are both seed funding for planning studies.
Ms Follett: Not enough?
MR CORNWELL: None of these initiatives, Chief Minister, by any stretch of the imagination, despite your hallucinations yesterday, can be regarded as job creating. At best, they are training opportunities that we hope, after a change of Federal government, will lead to permanent and secure employment. Essentially, Madam Speaker, this budget has provided additional training opportunities in TAFE, thanks to Commonwealth largess, and a "steady as she goes" approach in school-based education. In so doing, it has failed to confront the financial imperatives at the school level, and I predict that the Government will rue the day it allowed itself to be so craven in tackling this issue.
Mr Connolly: Spend much less.
MR CORNWELL: It will be the community, as always, Mr Connolly, which will be the real loser. Ultimately, it will be the community that is called upon to suffer service and quality cuts disproportionate to those which would be the case if a gradual, but more courageous, financial adjustment had been made.
Briefly to address housing - I would like to give much more consideration to this when we get to the estimates - might I say that the Government might be proud of its 262 additional dwellings and its $41.8m in rental rebate concessions, but I think it remains an indictment of the failed policies of the Australian Labor Party that so much is needed in this area to help the growing number of poor created by your fiscal policies, both federally and locally. Of course, it is not all bad, because it enables Mr Connolly's socialist housing empire to grow. Already the Housing Trust is Canberra's largest landlord. We know that. I suggest that, with outstanding rents of $4.4m - - -
Mr Connolly: They are actually reducing it.
MR CORNWELL: With outstanding rents of $4.4m in 1991-92, I would say that already it would be a matter of considerable concern to all responsible taxpayers and ratepayers. I am delighted to hear your interjection. I acknowledge that you are reducing it, and I will be pursuing that most avidly in the estimates.
Again I fear that one sees a missed opportunity here, Madam Speaker. I wonder what sort of savings would result if the funds for rental rebate concessions were provided as rent relief and prospective Housing Trust tenants could seek accommodation on the open market with these funds. What savings in overheads and maintenance of properties would result to the Government if this money were handed over to the tenants to seek accommodation on the open market? They would be considerable. What savings would you achieve in bad and doubtful debts? I think, again, that they would be substantial. Of course, from the tenants' point of view, what choice would then be afforded to these applicants to live where they felt comfortable rather than be guinea pigs for your social engineering? I believe that there would be substantial savings, but again it is an opportunity lost by this Government. I believe that, ultimately, again it will be the community that will be the loser.
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