Page 1403 - Week 06 - Tuesday, 5 June 2007
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MS PORTER: Minister, do you think we can expect further nominations of public schools at future MBA award nights?
Mrs Dunne: I take a point of order, Mr Speaker. The question is hypothetical in asking for an expression of what might happen in the future and is therefore out of order.
MR SPEAKER: Yes, I think that it was a hypothetical question.
ACT Housing—shopfront closures
DR FOSKEY: My question is to the Minister for Housing. It concerns the closure of ACT Housing shopfronts. Given the minister’s assurance that the closure of ACT shopfronts would not have a detrimental effect on the delivery of government services, could the minister please explain why the director of ACT Housing has written to non-government housing service providers outlining a series of concerns that have been brought to her attention about the impact of the closures and asking them to provide her with information on the increased number of clients presenting to their services, the type of assistance those extra clients are seeking and the time taken to deal with the extra demand?
MR HARGREAVES: Firstly, I have not seen that letter. I have not been made aware of its content. I will seek to become so aware and will look into it.
However, I have to say that one of the reasons why we closed the housing shopfronts was because there was incredible duplication across the system. As well, importantly, we have an incredible one-on-one relationship with our tenants. The people who sought to go on the list more often than not did so. They did their initial contact with housing over the telephone. Forms were then sent to these people and arrangements were made to interview them. There were not that many people actually attending the shopfronts to get that information.
It has been quite some time since the shopfronts were closed. I have not heard Dr Foskey expressing any concerns around this issue at all in that period. I have not had a letter from a constituent on the closure of these housing shopfronts for many, many, many months.
Mr Pratt: Then where do I get the cc copies from?
MR HARGREAVES: If Mr Pratt is so confident that he has had hundreds and hundreds of letters and hundreds and hundreds of constituents come to his office bawling their eyes out and ripping their clothes apart, I challenge Mr Pratt to collect them all together from the last three months, staple them together and deliver them to my office. Then I will respond. I suspect they do not exist. Mrs Burke makes the same claim. People are always ringing Mrs Burke’s office and saying things. They are always ringing Mr Pratt’s office.
MR SPEAKER: Order, Mr Hargreaves! Come back to Dr Foskey’s question, please.
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