Page 3990 - Week 12 - Thursday, 20 October 2005
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .
like—and it will lead us on. I officially opened the poverty-proofing forum the other day. It is, if you like, another audit mark midway to show whether we are going the right way and what are the causes of poverty. I would suggest to you that homelessness is a result of it, not a cause of it, but we need to consider all of these things in the context of what we are doing as a socially responsible government and, indeed, a socially responsible parliament.
Mr Speaker, I announced earlier that we will be having a housing summit. We will be inviting stacks of people, as best we can, and we will be putting advertisements in the paper. We want anybody who has a contribution to make to this summit to come and say to us where we should be going from here. We will give credit where it is due and we will do the fessing up where it is due, but I want a positive outcome from that and I want the community and the experts to tell us together where we should be going, where we should be directing our energies.
I would have thought that, instead of bagging this report on the progress of affordable housing, Dr Foskey may very well have taken the lead from Mrs Burke, who has said, “Good on you. It is a good thing. At the moment there are some warts around that need to be addressed, but essentially the direction is right and we can argue over the detail.” I have no problems at all with that, but all I have seen from the Greens is what I perceive to be, given some of the language that was used here, a beautiful piece of work which is not particularly well constructed academically and which seems to have been plagiarised from a cup of tea session involving ACT Shelter and ACOSS. I will bet my money, any amount of it, that this stuff is, in fact, straight out of ACT Shelter’s manifesto. I congratulate them for their contribution to the sector, but sometimes former Green members in this town ought to realise they are former Green members.
Question resolved in the affirmative.
Distinguished visitor
MR SPEAKER: I acknowledge the presence in the gallery of Ms Roslyn Dundas, a former member of this place.
Personal explanation
DR FOSKEY (Molonglo): Mr Speaker, I wish to make a personal explanation under the appropriate standing order.
MR SPEAKER: Do you claim to have been misrepresented, Dr Foskey?
DR FOSKEY: Yes.
MR SPEAKER: Please proceed.
DR FOSKEY: I am not sure whether ACT Shelter handed Mr Hargreaves their analysis of the report, but I can assure you that—
MR SPEAKER: Dr Foskey, you have to stick to the personal side of it. It is not an issue
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .