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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 6 Hansard (17 June) . . Page.. 1638 ..
MR SPEAKER: Do you have a supplementary question, Mr Berry?
MR BERRY: Yes, I do have a supplementary question. Minister, is it not the case that the enterprise agreement that your Government has with the employees of ACTION clearly states that there is to be no privatisation, that is, handing over or derestricting of the bus runs, so that there will be no privatisation, corporatisation or contracting out of ACTION services? Clearly, this action of the Government allows access to ACTION routes and is clearly privatisation. Is not this a clear breach of that agreement? Given that your decision to contract out work that could be performed by ACTION is clearly not in the spirit of the agreement, can you inform this Assembly whether you have reneged on the agreement; or is it the case that the agreement has expired?
MR KAINE: The answer, Mr Speaker, is no, we have not corporatised; we have not privatised; we have not contracted out; and we have not replaced an ACTION bus timetable with somebody else's.
MS TUCKER: My question is to Mr Stefaniak as Minister for Housing. Mr Stefaniak, housing is a very critical area of concern for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people; so, my question today is directed at finding out exactly what the Government is doing in this area. In 1995 the Chief Minister released a report on the implementation of the recommendations of the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody and said that an Aboriginal housing policy would be developed. The review of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander housing provision in the ACT was released in 1996. That made a number of recommendations, and the Government announced last year that it was considering those recommendations. In recognition of the special needs of Aboriginal people, key recommendations of that report included the establishment of an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander housing unit, a program development officer and secretariat for the Government and the development of specific programs to address the special needs of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in the ACT. I would actually like at a later date an update from the Government in response to this report generally.
MR SPEAKER: What is your question, Ms Tucker?
MS TUCKER: In particular, I would like to know whether the Aboriginal housing program officer position has been created, and I would like to hear when the Government will be releasing an Aboriginal housing strategy.
MR STEFANIAK: I thank the member for the question. It goes back actually to September of last year. Mr Speaker, since then I have been trying to do a number of the things which are done in every other State and Territory which gets funding through special grants from the Commonwealth. Tasmania, Ms Tucker, gets $686,000 for these programs from the Commonwealth. ACT Housing has estimated that we would be entitled to - and this is a conservative estimate - $592,000 or thereabouts from the Commonwealth. I have formally asked Jocelyn Newman, the Minister for Social Security,
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