Page 1355 - Week 05 - Tuesday, 5 April 2005
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Mrs Burke talks about “intimidation” and “retribution” by middle and lower level managers—her words exactly; I wrote them down exactly. Well, I challenge Mrs Burke to do two things: one, to read Hansard, because obviously a dose of Alzheimer’s disease has just hit, and, two, to put up or shut up. She can put up or shut up. I have complete faith in the senior management being supportive and showing great leadership within Housing ACT. Any sad reflection, such as Mrs Burke has made in denigrating those people, I will not put up with—or, as the great Winston Churchill said, is something “up with which I will not put”. So there!
Mrs Burke: Do you know that for sure?
MR HARGREAVES: You come up with facts, or you apologise publicly to those senior managers. You have got two choices here. You can give me the facts, put them in this place, come and table them. If you cannot table them, then stand up here and have the guts to apologise to those people. You can’t, because you know you are wrong.
At present, Housing ACT provides accommodation and direct tenancy support to over 10,600 tenant households. That does not include properties head tenanted to community organisations. This level of support is amongst the highest of any jurisdiction in the country. Many of the households have had experiences in their lives that most us cannot easily comprehend: they have fled domestic violence, dealt with family crisis, health issues or tragedy, or escaped trauma and violence in their home countries.
The government recognises that people experience disadvantage. Poverty, discrimination and social isolation are an unfortunate part of all communities, including the Canberra community, and they are often particularly found amongst the tenant households of public housing. Notwithstanding this, my experience of public housing tenants has been inspirational—and I have visited a huge number of tenants in their own homes. In fact, I started my married life in public housing and I know how it feels to be proud of it—and 99 point something per cent of tenants are proud of their public housing home; they are not sitting there quivering. However, some of them find it difficult to live with the regular demonisation of public housing tenants—the sort of stuff that Mrs Burke does regularly. Not only does she demonise the staff; she demonises the tenants. She has not got the originality that God gave her. She talks about morale within the housing department and says, “I’ve received a report of a high number of staff on stress leave.” She talks about low morale while the number of staff is down. She used exactly the same words about this ability in a press release only a week earlier. All I can say is that her photocopier is working overtime.
Mrs Burke: We haven’t fixed it yet!
MR SPEAKER: Order, Mrs Burke!
MR HARGREAVES: The ACT government is committed to working with the tenants of Housing ACT and the broader community to continue to support Housing ACT as the provider of a major human service to the community. Some examples of the work include: the reinstatement of security of tenure, in December 2002—which was removed by the Liberal government; the removal of start-up rent; the establishment of a debt review committee and support for sustainable tenancies; working with the tenants to
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