Page 299 - Week 01 - Thursday, 17 February 2011
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I have to say that I congratulate most particularly Housing ACT for the excellent job and the consultative and sensitive way in which it has managed the park on behalf of the ACT government and the relationship and rapport that Housing ACT has developed with each of the residents. Housing ACT visits the site every week. Housing ACT has a liaison officer available to deal with all resident issues and they hold monthly combined meetings with residents through a residents committee.
There has been ongoing engagement through the development of the options paper and the issues paper and the development of the government’s response. To ensure residents were fully informed a special briefing was provided to the residents committee yesterday, ahead of the announcement. A team of officers from Housing ACT were on site all day. (Time expired.)
MR SPEAKER: Ms Bresnan, a supplementary question?
MS BRESNAN: Thank you, Mr Speaker. Chief Minister, given that the government have been aware of this issue since late November 2005, why do we still not have a long-term solution to security of tenure for these people?
MR STANHOPE: I might just say, Mr Speaker, by way of regression, consistent with a question I was asked yesterday about the response to the Hawke review, there was universal acclaim, acceptance and applause for the development and release of the paper, with one exception—the Liberal Party. I can repeat that in relation to the release of the options paper in relation to the Narrabundah park, except it was not the Liberals that adopted the oppositional position from the outset, it was the Greens.
I must say how disappointed I was with Ms Bresnan, whose first utterance on the issue was to score petty political points, was to put the boot in, was to actually criticise. It was not to actually accept. The one voice standing out from the universal acclamation, the universal welcoming, the universal expression of gratitude and pleasure of the position that the government had taken was Ms Bresnan and the Greens.
I think that Ms Bresnan’s question today again illustrates a fundamental ignorance about the complexity of the issues. The ACT government resumed possession of Narrabundah park in 2006. It is enormously complex. Ms Bresnan asked, “Well, why haven’t we actually given greater certainty?” We have given certainty, of course, that was lost when Brendan Smyth transferred ownership and operation of the park away from the government. We took it back through a very complex and expensive arrangement. We arranged a land swap. It was enormously expensive.
I think that the issue at the heart of this and the massive misunderstanding, Ms Bresnan, is that this is a caravan park. Ms Bresnan asked, “Why haven’t you granted certainty of occupation to residents of the caravan park?” It is because it is a caravan park, Ms Bresnan. It is incredibly complex. It is a caravan park. They own the structure which was meant to be a caravan, but which is not, but they do not own the land. Caravan parks around Australia operate almost essentially on a month-by-month licensing lease rental arrangement. (Time expired.)
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