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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 7 Hansard (25 June) . . Page.. 2073 ..

MR WHITECROSS: I have a supplementary question, Mr Speaker. Chief Minister, will you table the terms of reference or guidelines that Fay Richwhite and Associates operated under during their audit study of ACTEW? If not, why not?

MRS CARNELL: I am willing to provide the terms of reference that Fay Richwhite are operating under. As Mr Whitecross would be aware, they have not reported at this stage. There might be a timeframe until we have a report on the table.

MR HIRD: Mr Speaker, my question is addressed to the Minister for Housing, Mr Stefaniak. I noted in a recent report of the ALP's annual conference that the Leader of the Opposition, Mr Whitecross, has accused the Government of cutting $7m from the housing maintenance budget. Is this correct? If not, what is the real situation?

MR STEFANIAK: I thank the member for the question. It is certainly not that, Mr Speaker. I noted a report in the Canberra Times on 15 June 1997 in which Mr Whitecross was reported as having said this:

While even more families are waiting for public housing, the Liberals can cut $7 million from their Housing Trust maintenance budget.

I am rather amazed at that, Mr Hird. It is an interesting figure. I really do not know how Mr Whitecross managed to dream up that figure. Ms Reilly was at the recent Estimates Committee hearings and perhaps she should have told Mr Whitecross, or maybe he should have attended or at least read the transcript. I gave details of a number of figures in relation to maintenance, not only for the 1997-98 year but also for a number of other years. If he had bothered to turn up, or read the transcript or talked to his housing spokesperson, he would have seen that the housing budget plan this year rises by more than $5m. In 1997-98, $19.33m will be spent on maintenance. I will say that again - $19.33m.

Ms Reilly: You have not managed to spend most of it yet. When are you actually going to get around to spending it?

MR STEFANIAK: And $7.9m will be spent on capital works. Do not worry, Ms Reilly; we will. That capital works money will be spent on significant maintenance upgrades to dwellings, Mr Speaker - things like wet areas and kitchens. That makes a total of $27.2m. Total expenditure, capital and maintenance, increases by $8.7m over last year's. Mr Hird should be interested in this: It is $7.3m more than was provided by Labor in its last full budget in 1994-95. I think that is pretty good. As members will be aware, I think the inflation rate has been only about 3 per cent for a couple of years and it is 1.75 per cent now. So, if you extrapolate it like that, Mr Hird, that is a huge increase over what that lot spent when they were in government.

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