Page 486 - Week 02 - Thursday, 25 February 1993
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MR CONNOLLY: I will withdraw "tattoo on the forehead"; I was speaking figuratively. What he said was that it is outrageous that people who have been to prison can move into public housing.
Mrs Carnell: No, he did not say that either.
MR CONNOLLY: He did. He said that people who may have served a sentence for rape or for assault are being moved into public housing near families and are being exposed to temptation. That is what he said.
Mr Kaine: I raise a point of order. Mr Cornwell did not say that it is outrageous. The Minister should stick to the facts and stop distorting what Mr Cornwell has said. Withdraw it.
MR CONNOLLY: Mr Cornwell has attacked the proposition that people who leave prison can move into Housing Trust properties near other people. The implication that one draws from that is that people who have once served a term of imprisonment are to be forever marginalised. I can assure you, Mr Humphries, that Mr Cornwell's precise words with no embellishment from me will be sent to every prisoners group in the community. You may have some embarrassing opportunities to explain to these people just what your colleague means by that extraordinary proposition that once you have served a term of imprisonment you are to be somehow quarantined in a sort of pseudo prison away from any other member of the community. It is an extraordinary proposition.
Mr Cornwell: So rapists and child molesters presumably are all right. Is that okay?
MR CONNOLLY: Mr Cornwell, the person who purchases the house next to my house or privately rents the house two doors up from my house may well have served a term of imprisonment for anything. There is simply no difference in who goes into a public house or a private house on those criteria. You are suggesting some new test, that if you have served a term of imprisonment for a particular offence - and we are not quite sure what ones it would cover - you are somehow to be treated differently from any other member of the community in public housing but not in private housing. That is an extraordinary proposition that somehow suggests that you forever serve out your term of imprisonment.
These so-called facts that have been put before the Assembly today really are nothing new. The call for an inquiry is merely a political stunt. We spent hours and hours in the Estimates Committee going through just these facts. Last year in its report the Estimates Committee, in effect, gave the trust a clean bill of health. It made no comment on the Housing Trust, no specific recommendations, no call for any inquiry, no call for any further explanations. So the suggestion that there is a need for an inquiry is rather inconsistent after Mr Cornwell ran this same sort of line for hours and hours before the Estimates Committee. The Estimates Committee did not see any problem with the Housing Trust. There were areas where the Estimates Committee had said that we should inquire into this or report further on that or do this or whatever, but there was nothing on the Housing Trust.
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