Page 849 - Week 04 - Wednesday, 2 May 2007
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on low fixed incomes can face social isolation if they do not have the opportunity to get out and about, visit family or friends or attend social or personal activities. Concessional rates offered on a driver’s licence or bus fare play a vital role in how these people make decisions to engage in the community.
The question remains: why did the ACT government stop conducting a wide-ranging review of concessions between 2002 and 2004? Surely it would have been a priority for a Chief Minister, so dedicated to build and maintain public confidence in government, to offer all forms of targeted assistance to those most in need of government assistance. And, of course, whatever happened to the much touted and promoted social plan? The Deputy Chief Minister talked about it being an ongoing process. This was a very convenient comment to hide the embarrassment of not having tabled what should have been tabled a long time ago, and I will get to that later.
In its apparent “code of good government”, Mr Stanhope projected that the ACT Labor Party espoused its belief in long-held values. Let me read out some of them now: fairness, integrity, openness, honesty, compassion, responsibility, accountability and leadership.
Ms Gallagher: Is this the speech for the next motion?
MRS BURKE: What I am saying is obviously getting the Deputy Chief Minister needled. There is a good reason for Dr Foskey to demand a very good explanation as to why any wide-ranging review of the ACT concessions program that was being conducted between 2002 and 2004 has simply stalled. I join in the call for a report to be presented to the Assembly on the last sitting day in June 2007, and I will move an amendment in respect of this at the end of my speech. Dr Foskey made mention of her own experiences.
In June 2002—and I will close on this point—Mr Cornwell asked the then Treasurer, Mr Quinlan, when and how such a review of the ACT concessional program was progressing and when a report to government on the effectiveness and adequacy of current concessions and rebates in assisting people affected by poverty to participate in the community would be produced. For the information of members, in answer to Mr Conwell’s questioning, Mr Quinlan indicated that it was anticipated that a report to the government would be completed—
MR TEMPORARY DEPUTY SPEAKER (Mr Gentleman): Order! The member’s time has expired.
MRS BURKE: Mr Temporary Deputy Speaker, as I foreshadowed, I wish to move the amendment circulated in my name.
MR TEMPORARY DEPUTY SPEAKER: Mrs Burke, you have run out of time. You will need to seek leave to move your amendment.
MRS BURKE: I seek leave to move the amendment that has been circulated in my name and which I foreshadowed I would be moving.
Leave granted.
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