Page 3109 - Week 07 - Thursday, 1 July 2010
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I would like to speak briefly about unit titles. The review of the Unit Titles Act is another key challenge to be faced later this year. There were some concerning issues raised during estimates hearings, and I urge the attorney to get on top of those issues and do the unit titles review well. (Second speaking period taken.) It is important that the attorney conducts the unit titles review well. It is a review that needs to be done carefully, because the number of people living in unit titles is only going to increase, and we need to be on top of the policy and legislation issues affecting unit titles, to ensure that that increasing mode of living is well supported.
Quite a few people who live in unit titles have begun to contact my office, outlining their concerns with how the act is operating. I have been noting their concerns, but I have also indicated to them the impending government review, telling them that this is the best place for their concerns to be addressed. And so it should be. However, when the attorney referred to the review during estimates he called it an “in-house operational review”. That did not fill me with a great sense of hope that the review would be anything near what the stakeholders are hoping for.
This unease was deepened when I heard the attorney say that it will be too hard to write to all stakeholders, because a different department has the list of postal addresses. Frankly, these same issues were raised by the government last time they needed to write to unit title stakeholders, and I must confess I was somewhat frustrated and disappointed that more than 12 months on there does not seem to have been any action on giving the government the ability to communicate with unit title stakeholders.
As was commented on during the estimates hearings by members of the opposition, this is a matter that should be addressed by cabinet and the information shared between departments. If this information cannot be shared, the review will be severely hampered, because stakeholder views will not be able to be thoroughly canvassed. The stakeholders clearly have something to say and valuable information to feed into the review. The government must engage with them and not use poor excuses such as those offered during estimates.
The review is scheduled to run from September this year. I think expectations in the community are high and the government needs to be refocused on delivering a thorough review that meets some of these expectations and ensures that we do not take an approach where we do not ask the questions to find out what the problems are and we simply try to gloss over some of those problems.
The fifth and final area I would like to make a comment on is funding for ambulance staff. There are welcome increases in the number of communications centre staff in this budget. This was in line with the recommendations of the Lennox review that said that the communications centre plays a pivotal role in demand management by delivering medical advice and diverting non-urgent calls. The government is to be congratulated for those initiatives.
However, the other side of the Lennox review is that it recommended front-line staff also be increased. The Greens see this as an equally valid and necessary step. Front-line staff must be resourced well enough to attend those calls that they are directed to
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