Page 3910 - Week 15 - Tuesday, 15 December 1992
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I acknowledge that the Opposition is making a valid point here. We set $1.5m; it could equally have been $1m or $1.25m. We picked $1.5m to have some scope for growth. I think it does reflect commercial realities. I think the industry accepts that it reflects commercial realities. I accept the Opposition's flagging this as a point of caution, but the Government would not be supporting amendments to move it a little bit this way or a little bit that way. We accept the proposition that it is prudent to have a housing program established through a housing trust, with a commissioner operating at arm's length from government on a lot of the commercial intricacies of buying and selling real estate, because that is essentially what we are talking about here. We get beyond the policy issues of how one might move into urban consolidation. The planning issues, of course, generally come later.
The commercial issues of buying and selling real estate are ones where I think the community is well served, and has been well served, by an independent housing commissioner exercising those purchase and sale decisions without political interference. The Housing Trust has been constituted as a trust in the ACT over about five years or so, and I am not aware of any allegations having been made by any community groups, or any party that happens to be in opposition, of any impropriety in relation to involvement in the real estate market. It is important that the probity of successive commissioners for housing in the way they move into the market and purchase or sell properties has never been questioned as some sort of political interference or corrupt practice.
Given that, members can have some confidence in giving the commissioner power to deal in sums of money which are considerable but, at the end of the day, are accountable back to this Assembly, and which reflect the commercial reality of the size of the dollars we are now talking about when we are talking about real estate transactions. When you adjust for inflation and rises in property values, they are in the order of the figure originally in the Bill. So, this is a proper note of caution raised by the Opposition but a matter which we think, on balance, ought remain.
Mr Kaine and Mr Cornwell then made the point about the off-budget borrowings, and I think Mr Kaine embarked on a bit of politicking there. He wanted to make some points about Victoria and borrowings, and I guess one can expect the Liberal Party to do that. The fact is that these off-budget borrowing programs are established, as set up in the Act here, as trust funds under the Audit Act. It refers you to a section 85 Audit Act trust fund, so they are funds which do appear in the budget papers. The term "off budget" really is shorthand for not using Consolidated Revenue, not using government revenue.
Mr Kaine: And not accountable to the parliament.
MR CONNOLLY: No, Mr Kaine. The figures appear in the budget papers as borrowings. We are required under this amendment to operate these off-budget programs through trust funds which are Audit Act trust funds and which come back through that whole accountability mechanism. So, if we were talking off budget in the sense that you had an organisation, an arm of government, running around borrowing sums of money that no-one was aware of, your point would be very valid; but I would say that that is not the case here.
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