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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 12 Hansard (13 November) . . Page.. 4144 ..

MS REILLY (continuing):

We had a lovely example of that recently in the announcement of the money for the youth health centre. There was no tendering process, just an announcement of who would get it, because we were about to lose that money that had been sitting here for two years. If the Chief Minister had done some work to discover the need for youth health services she would have had the opportunity to allocate this money effectively a long time ago, not just in the last month.

Another example was the spreading around of $118,000 of youth funding in May. A youth organisation that needed funding so it could continue to operate was not given any of that funding. The money was divided up into small pieces and scattered throughout the ACT, achieving no good outcomes, just bits and pieces to satisfy the whims of the Minister. Giving $4,000 to each youth centre is not looking at what might be needed in any one youth centre, or even looking at the needs of one youth centre to the exclusion of others. This $118,000 could have been well spent, but it was frittered away because the Youth Services Minister, along with the Chief Minister and the other Ministers involved with social planning and policy, have no idea of what is required. There is no coordination.

I could talk about people wanting to use buses. A long discussion yesterday exemplified the fact that bus services need to take into account the social needs of the people using them. We are getting new buses that will be able to take people with mobility disability, but we have no idea where those people live. We have no idea which bus routes to put these buses on, but we will have them. What a silly way to go about a program! Talk about putting carts before horses! Maybe we should go back to those types of transport. It shows a lack of knowledge and the lack of data available to the ACT Government. They have not done an analysis of community needs.

Mrs Carnell has talked often about maintaining funding for HACC in real terms. It sounds commendable, but if you do not take account of the real need for HACC-type services it is totally meaningless. Real terms funding is meaningless if you have no idea of the extent of the need. We had a great example of that last week. The Chief Minister announced a program of bonds for potential nursing home residents and the Housing Minister knew nothing about it. No-one has looked at the impact of this program on ACT Housing tenants, but we have this program implemented in isolation.

MR TEMPORARY DEPUTY SPEAKER (Mr Hird): Order! The member's time has expired.

MR MOORE (5.28): I think this matter of public importance is an appropriate matter to be brought before the Assembly. I suppose one of the great disappointments for me in looking back over the Third Assembly and what we are likely to achieve by the end of the Third Assembly is that we have not been able to put together an agreed strategic plan for Canberra. A strategic plan for Canberra would take into account a social plan. That is a fundamental part of a strategic plan. This Assembly rejected the so-called strategic plan that was originally put up by the Chief Minister, for the very reason that it lacked this sort of social plan. It was an economic plan of what would happen for Canberra and a general conservative view of how that should be carried forward.

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