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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2004 Week 05 Hansard (Friday, 14 May 2004) . . Page.. 1996 ..

this budget we see the $33 million from Appropriation Bill 2003-2004 (No 3) allocated to the housing portfolio. This money is coming out of the housing home loan portfolio and at this stage it is unclear how the money will be spent—it just lists it in very general terms. Again it looks like catch-up money for an area which has lacked strong ministerial leadership.

I have a good reason for saying that. The budget papers show that this government has allowed Housing ACT to reduce plant equipment and property by 33 per cent. This is being done at the same time as we see severe public housing shortages, reduced housing affordability, a lack of creative housing policy and people on large waiting lists for housing allocations and transfers. Wasn’t this going to be the government that would not cut the number of ACT housing properties? Here we are three years down the track and still no public housing for people other than the aged has been constructed on the former Burnie Court site. Other aspects of this budget also raise concerns. Indeed, let us look at the operating result for Housing ACT—budget paper 4, page 266. It says:

…this target focuses on the financial performance for the year and measures the performance of resource utilisation, and in particular the success in managing revenues from User Charges—non government (rents) and major operational and administrative expenditure items.

Unfortunately it seems that Housing ACT is now in debt to the tune of $19.4 million. With an internal tenant satisfaction rate as low as 59 per cent, I call this poor service and totally unacceptable. Moreover, this budget shows maintenance costs for public housing targeted to blow out from $78 million to $80 million in 2003-04. Why? The same costs are estimated to blow out even further by an additional $4 million next year under the government. I again ask why. I thought that privatisation of housing maintenance should provide the ACT taxpayer with a reduction in cost, not $6 million of blowouts over two years.

With regard to the budget I would now like to turn to some specific areas; in particular, carers and more specifically foster carers. The allocation of $350,000 to foster carers in the budget whilst welcome is really a little bit lean and mean and seen by me and those in the community as welcome but merely a token gesture. Why? This government has missed a real opportunity to give a section of the community under enormous pressure a real boost, given that there had been no payment increases for foster carers between 1993 and January 2004. The money given to carers by this government on 1 January 2004 was very modest, having been aligned to CPI.

Foster carers have been told that the $350,000 allocation in the budget equates to a 15 per cent increase in payments. While this can be seen as a positive the government still has not addressed, for example, the systemic issues of roles and responsibility between substitute day carers and foster carers. The minister has today given no indication of when the payments will start. As far as I am concerned this is simply catch-up money and only a partial reimbursement of the real costs faced by foster carers in our community.

Let me turn to vocational education and training. The budget tells us what we already know—that, as a result of this government not signing to the ANTA contracts with the Commonwealth, vocational education in the ACT will lose over $2.536 million. Budget

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