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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 13 Hansard (2 December) . . Page.. 4241 ..

MS REILLY (continuing):

It is simplistic to say that we have a "wait your turn" list for housing and that that is how we develop our policies. This is only one part of the data that should be collected. To rely on a "wait your turn" list is to accept that people know how to apply, that people are not discouraged, and that people are not living in unsafe circumstances and do not know how they can change that situation. It is important that we improve the collection of data and the analysis of that data and ensure that the data is not collected in such a way that you cannot get an indication of need across the whole of the ACT.

Another point I raise relates to the very small and shrinking reporting on issues related to the Women's Consultative Council and women's affairs. I made some comments last year on the annual report of the Chief Minister's Department in relation to what was reported on the work of the Women's Consultative Council, and I was assured that this was going to be taken into account in the following year. In the annual report of the Chief Minister's Department this year the number of words and the space allocated to reporting are even smaller. It is hard not to think that this is an indication of the importance which the Chief Minister and this Government place on women's affairs.

Further questioning elicited the fact that there is no women's policy in the ACT. It is a great failure by this Government that they have not developed a women's policy. This is not to say that women's services are not available in the ACT. There was discussion of some women's health services that are available, although we were left uncertain about whether the removal of Commonwealth money would cause these services to fold. These are important preventive services in relation to women's reproductive health. I hope that these services will not disappear. We need to understand where services for women are available, what gaps there may be and what duplication there may be. Without a women's policy, there is no way of measuring what is going on in this area. This is also true of social policy in the broader sense. We have so little data that we cannot work out what services are necessary and what services could be improved. In future consideration of estimates and scrutiny of budgets we need to look at how decisions are made for the delivery of services. This is an area that I would particularly request future Assemblies to consider when doing the estimates process.

MS TUCKER (11.16): The Estimates Committee was quite smooth this year compared to some. Ms McRae did an excellent job of chairing. I was a little bit concerned about the time it took us to get answers to some of the questions that we asked. The response to one question that was taken on notice came to us only this morning. That is not good enough. There is a recommendation in the report calling on agencies to take greater notice of questions asked and to ensure that answers are prompt, detailed and accurate.

There are a couple of other recommendations I will briefly speak to. We highlighted that, although the Government has been claiming that the sale and lease-back arrangements are not borrowings, their financial statements quite clearly show that they are. It is disappointing that Mrs Carnell said in her budget speech that it was a budget that would not require any new borrowings. Under the heading "Borrowings" the annual report of the Chief Minister's Department clearly states that a "financing arrangement" was entered into with BT Australia Ltd in January 1997, relating to the Magistrates Court building and the Dame Pattie Menzies Building, under which the ACT Government was advanced $49m-odd which will be repaid with interest over a 15-year period.

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