Page 2760 - Week 08 - Thursday, 24 August 2006
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the summit. When the strategy comes out, people will be able to see it on the web. It is a warts and all thing, hiding nothing; it is out there. We have not reduced the funding.
In respect of disability housing and community services, the intention is to do the administration. There is an organisation out there—and I will not name them; they know who they are—that was receiving overmatching funding for housing. By their own admission to me in my office, they added 30 per cent for administration. There was no consultation, something that Dr Foskey would not know about. Governance by committee is rubbish! We had to bring them in and have a chat to them. I have looked into their eyes and seen their pain. These people were charging 30 per cent for administration when six per cent is appropriate. That additional 24 per cent funding has been withdrawn, not the funding at their service delivery end.
I am applying the same sort of yardstick to my own departments. It is about systems and processes. It is about three small organisations having three photocopiers and three people doing photocopying. You do not need that. You put the three of them together so that their specialist service deliverers can operate. You do not need all that extra administration. I am applying that same strategy to my own departments and I am applying that to the amounts of money we give out to the community. We will probably save just a little bit on that during the housing bid in the next session.
Proposed expenditure agreed to.
Proposed expenditure—Part 1.14—ACT Housing, $22,384,000 (net cost of outputs) and $11,353,000 (capital injection), totalling $33,737,000
MRS BURKE (Molonglo) (12.20 am): Housing ACT has finally been granted an election commitment of a $30 million capital injection. But one would probably have to ask at what cost? The cutting of funds from service delivery to aid in funding the construction of just 90 more dwellings seems all too apparent as the department is required to find, I understand, in each of the next three years $6 million in efficiency savings to contribute to funding the seemingly unattainable Stanhope election commitment from 2004.
ACT Shelter and the tenants union both made reference to this commitment during the estimates process. ACT Shelter made a point that it is suitably unclear just how Housing ACT will achieve efficiencies in its service delivery to contribute its $6 million contribution of the $10 million contribution each year for the next three years.
The Liberal opposition echoes another point made by ACT Shelter on just how any efficiency gains would, in turn, impact on the appropriate management of housing stock, keeping in mind the targeting of the housing assistance program to those most in need. In addition, it is interesting that the Tenants Union ACT also found it difficult to ascertain specific detail. Surprise, surprise on that note! I am left wondering also just exactly how Housing ACT could continue to offer and sustain a reasonable level of service to its clients if it was taking funds from service delivery in order to pay for capital works.
Again, failure to make public the functional review makes it all but impossible not only for the members in this place and for me, but indeed for the whole community to agree to the Stanhope government’s budget. It is making it very difficult, and I think Dr Foskey
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