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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2003 Week 4 Hansard (2 April) . . Page.. 1264 ..

MRS BURKE (continuing):

Labor's ALP news statement "Poverty And Disadvantage: How Services Should Be Delivered"talks about training. It is commendable that you retrain staff who often have to face very difficult tenants. I have put a question on the notice paper asking how many tenants in the ACT have been consulted on further training to improve the quality of service to tenants. I am eagerly awaiting a response.

I support Mr Hargreaves' motion. I am pleased to see he is on the ball. I agree that we should support not just Tuggeranong but other areas as well. Much of what is coming from the government simply confirms what we already know and is what the government should be doing anyway. That was said by Ms Dundas as well. It is a good start. We need to do more. It is nothing more than we should expect of governments.

When will the government start to address the issues Mr Hargreaves has raised? I will wait to see how you escalate the program as you promised. You bashed the Liberals about reducing it, as I note from several media releases. Do not restrict it to Tuggeranong. Keep the banner going. Sadly, more and more people are living alone, Mr Hargreaves, as you well know, so the demand for public and community housing is high generally.

I thank Mr Hargreaves for bringing this matter to the attention of this Assembly.

MR PRATT (4.31): I rise to support Mr Hargreaves' motion. As a member for Brindabella, I wish to make some comments about the needs of people who have demands on the housing service. Having doorknocked through the entire Kambah public housing estate, I appreciate the age of the housing stock there. I agree that upgrading and replacing that stock are pretty important. I do not know where the government is going with that. I will be very interested to see what their plans are. It is no mean feat to get into that estate. There are almost 1,000 residents scattered through that area just south of the main road.

The Tuggeranong Valley continues to grow. Aspirational growth applies not only to those who can afford to buy but also to those people who have a need-indeed, a right-to call upon government services. Needy people who cannot afford to buy a house but who pay taxes and serve the community to the best of their capacity are entitled to aspire to live in those areas which meet their needs. There are many very attractive areas in the Tuggeranong Valley, and people ought to aspire to live in those areas. I would hope the government, in its planning, takes that into consideration.

Let us talk about the breathing of life into Tuggeranong Town Centre. I would hope that the government would identify sites in and around the Tuggeranong Town Centre and along the lake foreshore to build public housing. I would hope that such planning would involve a healthy mix of community housing and private housing so that as a community we may avoid the ghetto-like mistakes of the past. I refer to that dreadful complex people live in east of Civic and some of the housing blocks along Northbourne Avenue.

Mr Wood: Some of that is prime stuff. I will take you through some of that.

MR PRATT: I know that. I am talking about developments that have been around for a long time. I am not pointing the figure at you, Minister. I am just saying that it has been a

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