Page 483 - Week 02 - Tuesday, 10 February 2009
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Members will recall that the ACT has recently established a regulatory framework for not-for-profit providers in the ACT. This is consistent with the direction of the national system. What we are seeing in these two packages is $102 million from the federal government, which complements the $20 million for our social housing package and a further $20 million that has been allocated for additional stock. We have got the $50 million line of credit plus $140 million put into the community housing sector to show confidence in that. So you are seeing from this government hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars to grow the stock and make more appropriate stock available for people on a needs basis.
Contrast that, if you will, with the situation when we inherited housing responsibilities in 2001. We found when we examined the books that under the stewardship of Mr Smyth public housing stock had dropped by 1,000 units. Shame on them!
Economy—stimulus package
MR HANSON: Mr Speaker, my question is to the Treasurer. Treasurer, yesterday the opposition received a briefing from your senior officials on the commonwealth government’s stimulus package that included terms such as “guesstimate”, “not sure”, “still working out the detail”, “waiting for the numbers”, all in the melting pot”, “forming on an hourly basis” and “we don’t know”.
Treasurer, your government has a record of failure in delivering capital works, including the GDE and AMC. The commonwealth stimulus package proposes doubling the capital works budget with a tighter time frame. What changes will your government be making to ensure delivery of the proposed capital works program on time and on budget?
MS GALLAGHER: I thank Mr Hanson for the question. As Mr Hanson will be aware, a Coordinator-General has been appointed here in the ACT. Sandra Lambert has been given the job of managing, leading and coordinating the delivery of undertakings given to the commonwealth government for the nation building coordination. Mr Hanson’s question is not right in the sense that it is doubling the ACT’s capital works budget. It roughly equates, I believe, to about the annual capital works budget. The $350 million is not all coming to the ACT government and it is spread over a number of years.
Despite that error, it is a large program. It does need to be delivered on time. There are some very urgent time frames to be met, particularly in the national pride in schools program. In particular, some very clear timetables have been signed up to across all areas in relation to building the education revolution.
The Chief Minister and I, following our meeting at COAG, met with the senior team of government executives to talk through how we meet these timetables not just for the sake of meeting the timetables for the acquittal of government money. The importance of the package is about getting the money out, getting it into businesses and getting the work done.
That will be primarily the job of Sandra Lambert. She has been given some very extensive powers or directions from the Chief Minister about how he would like to
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