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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2003 Week 14 Hansard (10 December) . . Page.. 5065 ..

MRS BURKE (continuing):

Even more relevantly, for every case that we do hear about, one way or another there are many more that do not find their way to us-not in time, anyway, to be saved. I guess it is for many of these as much as for the known cases that this legislation seeks to address this environment. In short, this bill is more about positive front-end path making or bridge building than, as is largely the case at present, back-end bureaucratic, people crushing processes, often quite intimidating and in so many cases quite literally coming into force after the horse has bolted. We seem to have processes that make people want to run from the problem instead of running to the solution.

As others here have said before me, there is a disturbing gap between the present theory on a lot of this stuff and the actual reality experienced, despite the best of intentions and efforts of housing specialist managers and the like, who still have a role to play, perhaps even an expanded role, within the system, but in concert with other skilled players. I am talking about cohesion. I am talking about people working together better than they currently do to help the people in greatest need. There needs to be a far greater joint effort to exhaust all possible avenues for keeping tenants housed.

I do understand that there is some training occurring within the upper echelons of the department, but that brings with it some very sudden culture changes for some of the people at that level. I understand that they are simply not coping with the rapid changes, so we really need to be looking at helping those people cope with the changes and the dynamics of what is happening in our community today.

There is perhaps no more telling evidence of the failings of the current system than that given in an answer to a question on notice, Question No 161, in Hansard of 16 May 2002 at page 1792. The question was asked, again, by my colleague Mr Cornwell, and I deliberately quote the question:

What procedures are in place to prevent the problems leading to evictions recurring?

I stress the words "to prevent the problems". The answer from Minister Wood reads:

ACT Housing consults with the tenant when their rent account is in arrears...

The answer goes on to list the things it consults about. I stress the words "when their rent is in arrears". I shall expand for the benefit of some but perhaps not all of us here on why this answer holds the root cause-system failures-of present mechanisms and why this bill, in essence, seeks quite simply yet dramatically to change the process.

The minister is regularly heard saying, "We do our best,""We are getting there"and similar on issues of this and a related nature. I am sorry, Minister, but if this is your best, I believe that we can do better. If you are getting there, wherever "there"is-it is hard to tell sometimes-I, many of the ACT tenants and many others do not like the look of "there". We think that there is a better "there". It is actually more of a "here"than a "there".

To use the sporting analogy of a baseball diamond-I am sure that my colleague Mr Stefaniak will like this-let's be there with our tenants on the home plate as the pitcher, the game of life, starts hurtling those balls at them. Let's give them a better chance before they have even swung their bat, rather than catching up with them at third

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