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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2002 Week 8 Hansard (27 June) . . Page.. 2371 ..
MR STEFANIAK (continuing):
This budget however does not solve the housing crisis in the ACT, and further steps are need to be taken to provide those currently experiencing housing problems with adequate accommodation.
A recent ACT Government funded study into homelessness identifies needs and ways forward, however the funds previously earmarked for these new initiatives in emergency accommodation no longer exist.
We have $3 million. Let us use some of it. I wonder whether something has happened with the money we allocated last year, close to $13/4 million. I do not know the answer to that, but quite clearly things need to be done and they have not been.
I come now to justice. My portfolio responsibilities exclude police, emergency services and corrections. I make one comment in relation to corrections. Having been in cabinet when the prison project was going through, I am very disappointed that the government has seen fit only to spend money on a remand centre. When you are spending $50 million, $60 million or $70 million-whatever it ultimately will cost-you might as well go the whole hog, which is not all that much more. It would be a shame to see the prison drop over the edge and not appear on the radar screen during the term of this government.
There are not many justice initiatives. There is some money for the bill of rights committee. I suppose that is logical. I do not agree with a bill of rights, but I suppose if you have a committee it needs money. There is $103,000 to establish an ACT consumer law centre. Fine. There is some extra money for the Sentence Administration Board. There is a tiny bit of money to do some refurbishment to assist disabled access to the Supreme Court. But there is nothing else.
Compare that with last year's initiatives in the area of justice, excluding things like prisons and police. There was $354,000 for home detention, $425,000 to upgrade the information and IT systems at the court, $1.484 million for intervention programs to reduce recidivism-Ms Dundas, in her question, was interested in juveniles and prevention-$570,000 for a family violence intervention program and $545,000 for management of interstate custodial offenders. There was some $20,000 to assist families to visit prisoners. I have mentioned six good initiatives. There are only three in the current budget. There is a dearth of ideas in this portfolio.
A lot could have been done in this budget with the money that was available to the government. It should have been done, and it was not done. As a result a lot of people in Canberra who need not have missed out on benefits that could have accrued from this budget will do so. All I can hope for now is that where there are slush funds that money will be used well. I come back to housing. A lot of money in that slush fund could and should be used now. Some very desperate people, some of the most vulnerable people in our community, will probably suffer needlessly because of some misdirected priorities in the first budget the new Treasurer has brought down.
MRS DUNNE
(4.39): Mr Speaker, I rise to speak on the budget. What a fizzer! We have sat around for seven months waiting for this government to gestate a budget, and we get a mouse-a very grey, little mouse at that. This budget is a failure. It is a failure for what it is and for what it fails to do. This is a government that, according to its own publicity,
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