Page 4125 - Week 13 - Thursday, 31 October 2013
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Supplementary answers to questions without notice
Housing—homelessness
Alexander Maconochie Centre—capacity
MR RATTENBURY: During question time on 30 October, as the Minister for Housing, I answered a question from Ms Lawder on the Auditor-General’s report on homelessness. She asked me:
… how is it that the ACT government misreported the number of houses built under this scheme to the federal government, claiming 21 houses were built when in fact it was only 20, according to the Auditor-General’s report?
In response, I can inform the Assembly that the funding agreement with the commonwealth required the ACT government to match the commonwealth government’s contribution of $5 million. The ACT’s contribution was in the purchase of 20 blocks of land to the value of $4,884,362. The total construction cost was $6,194,467. The ACT government applied the remnant funds from the land purchase, being $115,638, and made up the difference with an additional $1,078,829 to meet the full costs of the 20 properties.
Unfortunately, due to a change of address to one of the properties in the quarterly report provided to the commonwealth, this was mistakenly reported as being an additional property and took the number of properties reported to 21. The agreement with the commonwealth was that 20 properties be constructed under the program, and a full acquittal was made to the commonwealth.
Further, Madam Speaker, on Tuesday, 29 October, Mrs Jones asked me a question in regard to forecast numbers for an ACT prison from 2002. Mr Hanson interjected as I attempted to answer the question, suggesting that he knew the answer. In fact, he was wrong, and I now wish to provide the Assembly with further clarification.
Mrs Jones asked me:
… did the government have Treasury advice which showed that the capacity of the AMC in 2013 should be between 320 and 351?
The answer to Mrs Jones’s question is in fact no. While I was not in government at the time, I understand that the figures referenced by Mrs Jones are actually from a table produced by the consultants Ross Petsas Luksza in 2011. These figures are from one of a number of sets of updates of Treasury’s original 2003 figures from the May 2003 proposals for future ACT corrections facilities document.
Public Sector Management Act
Papers and statement by minister
MS GALLAGHER (Molonglo—Chief Minister, Minister for Regional Development, Minister for Health and Minister for Higher Education): For the information of members, I present the following papers:
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