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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2002 Week 14 Hansard (12 December) . . Page.. 4418 ..

MR STANHOPE (continuing):

What would any good government do? Any good government would do what we did. Any good government would respond in the way that we did. I am proud of the fact that we did. I am proud of the fact that we had the capacity to do that. I am proud of the fact that we showed that level of support for public housing tenants in the ACT so that this problem could be resolved in as timely a way as possible.

It is interesting to me that the Auditor-General put some judgment on what he word "urgent"means. I would not mind betting that the Auditor-General's notion of what was urgent in relation to a unit over in the Bega or Allawah flats is slightly different from what a resident of one of those units would regard as urgent. It is obviously quite different from what a member of the Liberal Party regards as urgent in the context of units that were subject to a detailed audit commissioned by the previous government and provided to the previous government and on which the previous government did not act. There are, obviously, some quite different interpretations round the place around what is urgent, what is required, what is necessary, what is a moral imperative, and what responsibilities we, as a landlord, have to those in our community who live within such apartments.

This government responded. We responded urgently, we responded with alacrity and we responded in accordance with the advice that we were provided by the then head of the department of housing and the then head of Treasury and consistent with advice from the ACT Government Solicitor. I am proud of the fact that we did it. I do not step away from it. We will never step away from it, but I am more than happy to commit this government to ensuring that the ambiguities identified by the Auditor-General are dealt with.

I ask that further questions be placed on the notice paper.

Chief Minister's Department-annual report

Paper and statement by minister

MR STANHOPE (Chief Minister, Attorney-General, Minister for Health, Minister for Community Affairs and Minister for Women): For the information of members, I present the following paper:

Chief Minister's Department Annual Report 2001-2002-Corrigendum.

I ask for leave to make a statement.

Leave granted.

MR STANHOPE: The annual report, as published, includes information-on page 16 of volume 1-on the 2001-02 and 2002-03 public sector workers compensation premiums. This information contains an error. While the premium including GST is correctly reported, the premium excluding GST, the base premium, is incorrectly reported. The correct amount for 2001-02 is $23.85 million, not $23.61 million as reported. For 2002-03 it is $23.03 million, not $23.24 million as reported. These errors reflect a calculation error in the department made at the time the information was provided for the annual report.

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