Page 1424 - Week 05 - Wednesday, 6 April 2005
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Disability services
MRS BURKE: My question is to the Minister for Disability, Housing and Community Services. Minister, in your response to a question posed to you on 16 March 2005 concerning individual support packages, you said:
Every single person who met the criteria who has not received funding has received an offer from the department to work with them individually on a range of processes that might be able to suit them.
Yesterday, you sought to clarify that the 15 unsuccessful applicants who did reach the short-listing stage did receive contact from Disability ACT. You said:
A large number of unsuccessful applicants are already linked into support and alternative service providers. However, this may be inadequate and we will continue to work towards improving their outcomes over the long term.
Are any of these 15 unsuccessful applicants set to receive emergency funding because they did not receive funding under an ISP?
MR HARGREAVES: Mrs Burke is asking me for a level of detail with respect to 15 individuals. I do not have that level of detail about my person; so I will take the question on notice and get back to her.
MRS BURKE: I have a supplementary question. Minister, why are you now putting the onus and responsibility back onto these applicants to again contact the department when you said in March 2005 that they were already receiving support from Disability ACT?
MR HARGREAVES: I am not, Mr Speaker.
Cycle lanes
MR PRATT: Mr Speaker, my question is to the Minister for Urban Services, Mr Hargreaves. Minister, in a letter sent to me, dated 17 March 2005, addressing the use of on-road cycle lanes in the ACT, you stated that you do not believe there is a need to carry out a review of the on-road cycle path system at this time and that there has not been any evaluation of their usage to date.
Minister, how can you justify the ongoing construction of and the huge amount of funding allocated to the building of these on-road cycle lanes when your government clearly has no idea of their current or potential future use?
MR HARGREAVES: Mr Speaker, I can do that very easily because in the 2001 election the Labor Party, under Jon Stanhope, promised to build the cycle ways from, I think, Dickson to Woden and included it in our transport planning for inclusion in all major works and to do some retrofitting.
The Liberal Party lost that election. The Labor Party won that election. So we took that as a mandate to provide that particular facility. Then, in the ensuing three years, there was community discussion. Then there was yet another referendum on the issue, the
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