Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . .

Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2000 Week 12 Hansard (7 December) . . Page.. 3829 ..

MS TUCKER (continuing):

put in submissions, research those submissions and give oral presentations and who had faith enough in the system to do so.

We received 45 submissions. We heard 44 oral submissions. One of the people who made a submission was in tears last week, tears of frustration and disbelief, after having read the government response.

Mr Moore: Oh.

MS TUCKER: Mr Moore interjects, "Oh." He likes to mock the passion in the community. Mr Moore is so concerned about his own political situation that he is not prepared to acknowledge this total commitment from many people in the community on this issue. He does not seem to understand how incredibly offensive that is.

MR SPEAKER: Ms Tucker, would you please mind continuing with your speech.

MS TUCKER: I have to respond to that ridiculous interjection.

MR SPEAKER: I do not think you do. However, just continue with what you were saying.

MS TUCKER: The government would have done much better to say what they mean, which is, with a few exceptions: "We do not accept or agree with your recommendations. We intend to continue with the agenda we outlined originally in the budget announcement of 1999 - 2000. We are going to pretend to look like we agree. We do not want to make Mr Hird, who supported the report, feel uncomfortable, so we will play around with the language."

I would like to remind members of the initial process and why we had this select committee. Major changes to policy on public housing were announced in the budget process, with no consultation preceding the announcement. When challenged about this, Mr Smyth blithely responded that consultation was not necessary for budget decisions. The select committee was established in response to this very inadequate and undemocratic process. The government continues its charge to dismantle public housing as we know it.

Mr Speaker, the provision of adequate, stable and affordable housing is recognised as one of the central elements to mitigating poverty amongst people on low incomes. The provision of public housing establishes for many people on low incomes and experiencing disadvantage the key platform from which to address other life concerns such as health matters, furthering education and training, as well as seeking and maintaining employment.

Public housing is a very significant social responsibility of government. It is extremely disturbing to see how little work has gone into this response. As I have said, the response is extremely late, and we would have hoped to have seen some substance in it.

I remind members that the first recommendation, which rejected eliminating security of tenure, was responded to with a statement that the government needed to do a comprehensive assessment of the impact of its proposed changes. That assessment has

Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . .