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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1996 Week 9 Hansard (27 August) . . Page.. 2596 ..

MRS CARNELL (continuing):

That still means, Mr Speaker, significant wage increases over the next 12 months - wage increases that will come at a cost to the budget. In fact, the pressure on the budget for increases in wages and other things could be as much as $40m. We have a situation in which we have less own source revenue, $25m less from the Commonwealth and pressures on the budget of, possibly, in the vicinity of $40m. If only, Mr Speaker, we had a $10m problem! Unfortunately, we do not have a $10m problem, and the Government has had to look, and will continue to look, at ways to plug the significant hole, to solve the significant problem, we have in our budget. We will do that in ways that, wherever possible, will not affect service delivery.

What we have already said is that Education will receive a CPI increase on top of their budget from last year. We do not walk away from that. We have significant pressure, as we always do, in Health. We have more patients wanting to be serviced. Ms Tucker is forever talking, as she should, about pressures on disability services. All of those areas need to be addressed. The one area where we did believe, Mr Speaker, that there was capacity to move is the housing area. That does not mean that we are moving away from our obligations to housing. I think we are committed to spending in the vicinity of $28m this financial year on new public housing. So it is certainly not as if the Government is saying, "Shock, horror! We are not going to spend any more money on public housing; we are getting out of it".

What we can do, Mr Speaker, is change our mix. That can produce certain outcomes for the Government which I believe will be positive both for Housing Trust tenants and for the budget generally. As those opposite should know, we have a lot of pressure in housing for more one- and two-bedroom types of accommodation and for more aged persons accommodation. We do not have pressure at all for some of the somewhat ageing three-bedroom accommodation. What we need to do is build more one- and two-bedroom units and more aged persons accommodation and move from the three-bedroom style of accommodation to a new form of accommodation. Obviously, Mr Speaker, from the perspective of any government and the perspective of Housing Trust tenants, that has to be a good thing.

MR SPEAKER: Do you have a supplementary question, Mr Whitecross?

MR WHITECROSS: Thank you, Mr Speaker. Mrs Carnell has confirmed that she is doing this because of her own budget problems, not Mr Howard's.

MR SPEAKER: No preamble, Mr Whitecross, if you remember.

MR WHITECROSS: I was just observing that in passing. I know that you were listening carefully to the question. Mrs Carnell, now that you have indicated in your answer that you are going to change the housing mix to, instead of more houses, some houses and some thin air because you are taking $10.4m out of the housing and construction budget, what public consultation took place to establish the consequences of your decision to reduce the housing budget by $10.4m for people who use public housing? Why was your Minister unable to give any information on this decision, even after the Federal budget announced it last Tuesday? We were told that it was secret.

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