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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2003 Week 3 Hansard (23 October) . . Page.. 4009 ..

Mrs Burke

: I thought you were the social libertarian, Jon. Where are you standing on this?

MR WOOD

: Mrs Burke does not want to hear this.

MR SPEAKER

: Order, members!

MR WOOD

: We have gone to other non-government agencies-

Mr Stanhope

: She cannot quite grasp it, Bill.

Members interjecting-

MR SPEAKER

: Order! Resume your seat please, Mr Wood.

MR WOOD

: They keep interjecting. They do not want to hear an answer, Mr Speaker.

MR SPEAKER

: I am worried about you being caught in the crossfire, Mr Wood. Mr Wood, would you resume your response, please, and would members refrain from interjecting.

MR WOOD

: I am not going to be caught in the crossfire. It is the broadsides that I am firing that are causing problems over there. Let's hear nothing about crossfire!

Members interjecting-

MR SPEAKER

: Order, members!

MR WOOD

: We continue to engage with all ACT government agencies, certainly all those that are relevant, such as the police, community services, Aboriginal liaison officers and mental health areas, to work through these issues.

We have our successes. You, perhaps, do not know about those. We acted quite properly yesterday, as we have on many other occasions when circumstances such as these have arisen. However, because of the nature of society, the problems will continue. If we have heaps of money, we can employ more people and we can build specialist places to accommodate these people.

In fact, since the opposition is beginning to announce some policies, what I wait for is the new policy on housing by the opposition, in which they will forgo their former policy of running down the number of public housing units in the ACT, making it harder for people to get accommodation.

Mr Stefaniak

: On a point of order, Mr Speaker: standing order 118 (a) indicates that Mr Wood should confine himself to the subject matter. We are not talking about running down properties; we are talking about safety and security.

MR WOOD

: They got rid of a thousand houses and units over a short period of time.

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