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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2004 Week 03 Hansard (Wednesday, 10 March 2004) . . Page.. 1016 ..

next strike a trauma—such as, as Ms Burke talked about, someone who had been involved in Cyclone Tracy.

We do not know when these things will come up, but we do know that there are many people who have not returned to work regularly, who do not go to school regularly—sorry, not many, but there are some people who do not go to school regularly or who have not returned to work. Their houses may not have burned down but they now do not have the financial wherewithal to keep their houses because they have been so traumatised by this.

Housing is one of the most crucial issues. Again I will go back to the findings of the poverty inquiry. Unless you address people’s housing you do not address one of the principal causes of poverty and many people run the risk of falling into poverty as a result of the bushfires because they are underinsured and they do not know where to go and how to progress getting themselves permanent housing again. And while ever there is a substantial proportion of people who do not have permanent housing or the prospect of permanent stable housing the recovery centre should be operating for them.

One of the great benefits of the recovery centre was the one-stop shop. Mr Stanhope’s description of what is going to happen is the abolition of the one-stop shop. It is going to be the four-stop shop. Yes, there is continuity with the telephone numbers and things like that —

Mr Stanhope: It is what everybody wants.

MR SPEAKER: Order!

MRS DUNNE: Well, if it is what everybody wants, Mr Speaker, the people at the Phoenix Association meeting on Narrabundah Hill must be in an alternative universe. We must all have been in an alternative universe from the one that the Chief Minister dwells in because the palpable feeling at the meeting on Sunday, which I attended and I do not think the Chief Minister did, was great distress about the closing of the recovery centre.

And while there is great distress I do not think that we should be contributing in this place to setting back people’s recovery by upsetting the apple cart. It works. It works fabulously. If it ain’t broke don’t fix it. Let us move through the process and let us take every one in the community with us because there is a palpable anger out there that the people affected by the fires are being left behind.

And I suspect that this Chief Minister and this Minister for Disability and Housing know that by the tone of their response. They are very sensitive on this. I am very sensitive to the needs of the people of Duffy and of all those people who attended at Narrabundah Hill the other day and I would like to champion their needs here, because at the moment their voice is not being heard by the government.

MRS CROSS (5.43): I rise to speak on this motion and the Chief Minister’s amendment. It is an admirable motion and I congratulate Mr Smyth for continuing to show his concern for the bushfire victims. I am researching this and there has not been as much time to research it as I would have liked.

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