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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2003 Week 5 Hansard (7 May) . . Page.. 1612 ..

MRS BURKE (continuing):

leave. Minister, does this not tell you that there are problems? What are you going to do to support your department more fully?

We in this place must all be aware by now of the recent police raids of public housing premises in Lyons, with more operations expected. This is excellent news and I am very pleased to see such action for the sake of many tenants who have been exposed to nothing short of terror in living near antisocial tenants. This needs now to be backed up by the minister in terms of enforcing tenants' obligations under their housing agreements.

I would like to say that I also believe that the people who are the perpetrators of this type of behaviour obviously need help and assistance to live. It is an indictment of the environment in which these people live that they found to their relief that it was the TRG, the Tactical Response Group, that raided these houses the other evening.

Minister, it seems that we are just shifting the problem. Moving tenants from one place to another is not the solution; it will not solve the problem. The criminal, antisocial element is running rings around you, the police and your department. Given that you have the unique position and opportunity of being the minister for both housing and police, you should be in a better position than anyone to address these matters and deliver results for your tenants as their housing minister and their neighbours and the broader community as the police minister.

I understand that you are one of only two ministers for housing and police in this place since self-government. The other one was Bernard Collaery, if Mr Stefaniak's information is right. I am also challenged by the fact that we have only spent 0.51 per cent of housing income on security. I ask the minister to review this allocation and address the issue of security as a matter of urgency.

Mr Wood accused me of casting a slur upon all housing tenants. That is simply absurd and outrageous, and he knows it. If only he would take time to listen to what I am really saying, he might learn something that would help him. However, he completely misses the point. Indeed, he has angered many residents with his comments. Either the minister is in denial of the reality and gravity of these serious problems, problems that are spread throughout ACT Housing properties in Canberra, or he is simply out of touch with the real world. Maybe it is a bit of both.

It is time for these problems to be faced by the minister and for the rights of the majority of good people to be adequately defended by this ACT Labor government, which, let me add, purports to stand on a strong social platform. If the minister is not up to the task, he should hand it over to someone who is. A little saying I once heard and try to live by is: lead, follow or get out of the way. Minister, which will you choose today? This is a serious issue.

Recently, I invited the minister to accompany me to meetings of some of the resident groups that I have been approached by as shadow housing minister in order to hear directly from these people about the antisocial activities and the dreadful lives they lead, all because of the presence of an unsavoury element. The problems are largely born out of the underlying substance abuse and crime culture and the majority of

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