Page 2616 - Week 09 - Tuesday, 25 September 2007
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housing in the ACT, a not inconsiderable number of Canberrans whose lives are certainly, in large measure and for a significant number of them, enhanced as a result of their capacity to access secure housing.
We seek to ensure their enjoyment of that housing through a range of protections, not least of which, of course, is the ACT Human Rights Act and, significantly, the Residential Tenancies Act. Those pieces of legislation protect not just public housing tenants, but indeed all tenants. It is in that context, of course, that we can look at and perhaps measure the significance of the Liberal Party policy announced by the Acting Leader of the Opposition, Mrs Burke, that in future, should a Liberal government come to power in the ACT, all places, all units of public housing, all 11,500 with all 23,000 tenants or residents of public housing in the ACT will, under amendments to the legislation proposed by a Liberal government, be subject to random, on-the-spot searches.
Mr Smyth: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. The question was not about what Mrs Burke had said. I would ask you to confine the Chief Minister to the subject of the question. It is his dixer. He should actually have the written answer there in front of him.
MR SPEAKER: Chief Minister, come to the subject matter of the question.
MR STANHOPE: The subject matter of the question was protections afforded to residents or tenants of housing within the ACT. That was the question. We have a range of protections, and those protections, in large measure, go to ensuring quiet enjoyment, not just by public housing tenants but, of course, all tenants, all people who occupy housing in the ACT, non-harassment and equality before the law so that certain citizens are not treated in a way that other citizens are not treated and so that, just by dint of one’s tenancy of a public house or a public trust house, one will not be subject to unannounced, non-supported spot searches or checks.
The Liberal Party has announced in the last two weeks, under the Acting Leader of the Opposition, that a Liberal government will amend all legislation that prevents—
Mrs Burke: You’re making this up.
MR SPEAKER: Order, Mrs Burke!
Mrs Burke: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker.
MR STANHOPE: random spot checks of all public housing tenancies to ensure, in the words of the Acting Leader of the Opposition, that—
MR SPEAKER: Chief Minister, resume your seat.
Mrs Burke: Mr Speaker, there is an imputation there that I have released or am about to release some matter of policy, and I am not. The Chief Minister must withdraw that.
MR SPEAKER: That is not a point of order. Sit down.
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