Page 3251 - Week 08 - Wednesday, 22 August 2012
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I am meeting with Reverend Park and Rhonda Back, and so will the Community Services Directorate and other relevant agencies, through this week and when Rhonda Back returns from leave. She is on leave, I understand, for a couple of weeks. We will continue to work with them and assist them with their proposal. The Community Services Directorate will take a coordinating role in this for some of the matters raised across agencies. As one would understand, it does not wholly sit within the Community Services Directorate.
Again, Ms Bresnan, I thank you for bringing this on. When it was raised just recently, I got in touch with the church group and made it very clear that there are concerns, and it is right that there should be concerns, around this. But as far as this being a short-term initiative from church groups that do great work in our community, I have asked the Community Services Directorate to work through those issues as they arrive, to give it every chance—every chance—of success.
Going back to those opposite, I again repeat the invitation for them to refute that homelessness is, in their policy, simply “negotiable”—in other words, to put effort into homelessness and not put it on a list that is negotiable, to be got to when their mind is put to it. And I also wonder if Mr Smyth has the gumption to stand up and say—I could use Mrs Dunne’s example of Jack who is homeless—that young homeless youths that want a chance in life under the guidance of the Salvation Army will be supported and welcome in the community of Chisholm.
MR CORBELL (Molonglo-Attorney-General, Minister for Police and Emergency Services and Minister for the Environment and Sustainable Development) (8.10): Minister Burch has outlined very well the government’s position in relation to this important issue. I wish to simply reiterate the perspective of the building regulator on this issue, as this is a matter which has encompassed the responsibilities of the Construction Occupations Registrar, who looks after compliance with the Building Code in the ACT.
It is worth observing that the use of buildings in the ACT, and right across the country, is governed by building acts and, through them, the Building Code. A building built for one purpose is not, in all circumstances, fit for use for another purpose. The Building Code exists to ensure that each different type of building is safe for the use that it is proposed for and will not, in the event of an emergency, trap or cause harm to the users of that building.
Churches and church buildings, I am advised, are not necessarily designed or constructed to be used for accommodation purposes. That is not to say that they cannot be adapted for that use, as Minister Burch has outlined. But there is a process that needs to be followed to ensure that buildings are fundamentally safe for the people who occupy them. Looking at the proposal in question, with the churches in the inner north of the city, given their relative age of construction, it is highly unlikely that they would be fitted with smoke detectors or with emergency lighting, both of which are important in an emergency.
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