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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1996 Week 11 Hansard (25 September) . . Page.. 3386 ..

MR SPEAKER: There is no point of order whatsoever. Ms Reilly is quite capable of taking a point of order herself, I would have thought.

Mr Whitecross: Further to that, Mr Speaker, I would have thought that it was the responsibility of all members of the Assembly to ensure that standing orders were kept to. The issue here is relevance. It is as important to me as it is to Ms Reilly that the Minister answer the question.

MR SPEAKER: There is no point of order. Continue, Mr Stefaniak.

MR STEFANIAK: Mr Speaker, I would agree with you. If the Leader of the Opposition had listened, he would have heard the answer. In fact, if you read page 21, you will see, as I said, "the building industry has estimated". The scheme is a great scheme. It shows cooperation between the Government, the housing department, OFM, the building industry, the HIA and two banks.

MS REILLY: I ask a supplementary question. I hope that everybody applying for it reads all of the small print in regard to some of the repayments.

MR SPEAKER: Ask your supplementary question without preamble.

MS REILLY: It was only a little one. It is important to set the scene. Can the Minister explain how this scheme will create the new jobs in the housing industry when the OFM forecast no growth in residential approvals in the next 12 months?

MR STEFANIAK: That is interesting. I seem to recall somewhere in the course of the whole budget a figure, or projection, of 2,700 new approvals for building homes in the ACT; so I do not quite know where you get your figure from. Are you assuming that there are going to be absolutely no new houses, Ms Reilly? That is what it sounds like. That seems to be quite at variance with that figure. You are clutching at straws, Ms Reilly. I think you lot would love to have thought of a scheme like this because of the great benefits it brings to the ACT economy and the jobs it helps create.

MS TUCKER: My question is to Mrs Carnell as Treasurer. In this place on 31 May last year in the debate on the Greens' motion regarding ACTION corporatisation, you stated:

The buses will stay in public ownership. I repeat: The buses will stay in public ownership. The ACT people - the ACT Government - will continue to own the buses.

How can you reconcile this statement with the sale of ACTION buses announced yesterday?

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