Page 3965 - Week 10 - Thursday, 28 August 2008
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And housing. I was not quite sure how to handle that, but I soon absolutely thoroughly loved that. I was pleased to institute things like the tenant of the month. That was after a situation with a dreadful place in Macgregor where it was wall-to-wall crap. It was just dreadful. There was a horrible photo in the Canberra Times. I thought: “This is dreadful, but most of our tenants are excellent. Let’s reward good tenants.” So tenant of the month started, and I am very pleased to see that that is a program that continues regardless of who is the government. It was a pleasure, too, doing things like getting the housing debt down and some very good renewal programs, starting with a big slab of complex renewals and things like that.
Of course, sport and recreation and racing are a great passion of mine. I am very pleased to see continuing expenditure there—getting extra facilities, seeing the first of our ACT sports athletes do so well in the 1996 Atlanta games. That is a tradition that has continued—the Canberra athletes excelling themselves. I am very pleased at just doing things and delighting in seeing how many people enjoy their sport here and how many people participate. It is crucially important that areas like this are adequately funded and people encouraged, because it is so important for social fabric.
I was pleased to get a couple of Rugby tests for the Bruce Stadium, as it then was. There was Australia versus Tonga and Australia versus Argentina. I recommend that whoever is minister for sport should just go down and see these people—be they the National Rugby League or the Australian Rugby Union—and push the case for Canberra. We can even get better things here. During my time as sports minister, sometimes against a bit of opposition from my own party, I was pleased to see the old Belconnen pool, CISAC. That is a great institution. I am pleased to see that people are going to continue that idea. It is a great way of doing something reasonably cheaply, for government, in terms of the new Gungahlin pool.
I turn to more recent assemblies. In the Fourth Assembly, I had a few additional responsibilities. I was Attorney-General. That was a lot of fun—tightening up the criminal law and making it much easier for police to arrest villains by changing the provisions in relation to arrest—reasonable suspicion instead of reasonable belief. There was the tightening up of the Bail Act, which, I am pleased to see, the current government has not watered down. That has helped considerably in terms of such recidivist offences as burglary and break and enter—often committed by a small group of people who do multiple offences—being reduced significantly. That has been acknowledged by the police. I am pleased to see that legislation there. Also, I think we did some fairly significant tenancy legislation.
It is often hard in opposition. The last two assemblies have been hard. But I am still pleased to see some degree of cooperation and to see some bills actually get through despite the fact that, in this instance, we even have majority government. I was particularly pleased to see a gaming bill get up in 2004 and I worked with Ted Quinlan in relation to that.
Looking back on just what happened in the Assembly, I look back on a number of things I am personally very happy with and a number of areas where we have cooperated pretty well. It is always good to see, especially with legislation. If it stays
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