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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2004 Week 05 Hansard (Friday, 14 May 2004) . . Page.. 2046 ..

MRS BURKE: Is that right? Of course, you are the good financial managers. I forgot. While I agree with the committee that the injection of $33.2 million to ACT Housing to address homelessness and housing affordability is warranted, the issue should have been adequately and incrementally addressed over the last three years by the current housing minister. That is what they promised. They said they would not slash public housing. What do we see now? A huge injection pumped back in, still nothing on the Burnie Court site and the Currong flats decommissioned.

Mr Quinlan: What did your lot do? They produced nothing.

MRS BURKE: It is your watch, Mr Quinlan. You have had your time. Now your honeymoon is over. You had better get used to it. There is an election in five months. The problems of housing affordability and homelessness are ongoing concerns and should be addressed in an ongoing manner, not, as we see here, with a huge one-off $33.2 million appropriation. It seems to me that this minister has dropped the bundle and is now frantically trying to pick it up.

How on earth was he able to have that money? Actually, he did say he had a time trying to get this money out of you, Treasurer. I understand that this is just an accounting mechanism through which you transfer an amount from one place to another—as I said, from one hollow log to another. As I was saying, the minister has dropped his bundle and is now frantically trying to pick it up. How on earth was he able to have $33.2 million approved by cabinet? That’s amazing, irrespective of how he came by the money. Interesting.

Mr Quinlan: Probably a conspiracy.

MRS BURKE: He did say he had a time getting some money out of you. You would be interested in that, Mr Quinlan. Actually, you did very well to support him.

I also agree with the committee that the amount expended for the community inclusion board is an overlap of an ACT public service function, which is a feeling echoed by many in the community services sector. There is absolutely no need for another academic think tank to tell bureaucrats, politicians and the community sector what they already know.

A prominent member of the board advised me this week that this board needed to exist because there was no coordination. Isn’t that a testament to the way that this lot organise things? I think that is dreadful. We have $9 million being used on a board when we already know the problems. That is shameful. Those in the community are not happy with it and argue that they already have appropriate consultative processes. They also argue that Hugh McKay and senior departmental officials are welcome to join them. Why use this money in such a way? $9 million is a lot of money.

Surely it is down to the minister and his directions to his department to coordinate services required and offered by the sector. This is merely more duckshoving by this government so that they will not be the ones making the hard decisions. It is all too clear. “Let’s have another board, another layer. We can stand back. We don’t have to take the blame. We can blame somebody else.” Very sneaky.

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