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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2003 Week 6 Hansard (17 June) . . Page.. 1907 ..

Mr Stanhope

: You've set them on the path of disillusion, Bill.

MR WOOD

: The path of disillusion. It's not going to make much difference to anybody's lifestyle at all.

Mr Stanhope

: You could probably hire a dirty video for that, too, Bill.

MR WOOD

: I don't know the answer to that, Mr Stanhope.

Mr Stanhope

: Or alcohol. Don't let anybody have any fun.

MR SPEAKER

: Mr Stanhope! Mr Wood is trying to answer the question.

MR WOOD

: I don't have any difficulty at all with what happened; it's not the case, however, that I authorised this expenditure. I repeat: I have no complaint about it. We let a tender to a most reputable firm to do a very thorough survey of the tenants of Currong flats.

Mr Stanhope

: And of their moral standards?

MR WOOD

: We didn't actually intrude into that, Mr Stanhope. The people whom we contracted to do this work are well known and highly regarded. The quality of their work is not really open to contest.

I might add an interesting point since the question was about Currong apartments. The people sitting opposite, if they were still on this side of the house, would have a bulldozer ripping down-

Mrs Burke

: On a point of order, Mr Speaker: can Mr Wood please answer the question. It was: how can you reasonably justify a decision to entice survey participants in this way?

MR SPEAKER

: Come to the point of the answer.

MR WOOD

: I know it is a sensitive issue for those people over there, but by this time you would have knocked over those apartments; they would be dust by now. That was your program.

What did we do? We required a thorough study. Part of that study-the most significant part of that study-was to go and ask tenants what it was that they desired. That is an important step to take that you people never took when you demolished those flats out there near Parliament House, when you demolished MacPherson Court and other places. You never asked the tenants what they thought about it. But that's what we've done.

I think you should be standing up, Mrs Burke, and congratulating us for having the sensitivity to go out there and ask the tenants what it was that they wanted-a point of view you never give any regard to.

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