Page 2069 - Week 07 - Wednesday, 6 August 2014
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the enormity of being displaced from your home. Potentially, now, your house is going to be demolished. You will not be able to return to that home. You are moving into temporary accommodation with only the clothes that you stand up in. All of your possessions in some cases may have been lost, and you are now living in cramped conditions in a motel, perhaps, or staying with friends and family while your house is being treated or demolished.
All of the families affected are concerned about their health impacts—what this means for themselves, what this means for their family, what this means for their children. All of them are concerned about the financial impacts. What does this mean for them financially, because for most Canberrans, their home is also their financial future?
More broadly, and not just for the ones that have been displaced, I think these issues affect everybody still in their homes. Indeed we have been told so many different stories about people who are living in these homes now while not knowing what the future holds for them. That is a very disturbing situation.
That is why the Chief Minister announced the counselling support. I think that was a great initiative, because many of the people I have spoken to are under tremendous stress. They are not clear about what their future holds or what repairs they can do. What about the tradespeople that have visited, what about extensions that have been done and what about people living in and renting a Mr Fluffy house? What does that mean? What is the issue with the resale of that house? Will their house be demolished, and so on? We have all had conversations with people, so we understand what the implications are.
Ms Gallagher yesterday said that it would appear that these houses will need to be demolished. I support that view. That probably is what is going to have to happen if we are going to resolve this in the longer term. I certainly share the Chief Minister’s view that we need to resolve this once and for all. This is not something that we want future residents and future parliaments to be having to deal with.
There are issues with the rollout of support through the task force. I understand that this is a complex, difficult issue and that the task force are working extraordinarily hard. They are doing everything they can to support those families. But it is clear, based on my conversations with a number of families and, indeed, from some of the messages, such as message No 4 that was put out by the task force themselves, that they are falling behind in some of that work. In particular, as I have outlined, families are at a point where they are needing information in a timely fashion, they are worried, they are confused and they want as much certainty as we can provide them.
There are instances where the task force have said, “We will get back to you in a couple of days,” and they have not. It has been a couple of weeks, and in some cases not at all. I am not in any way criticising the task force. What I am saying is that we would support the government with respect to the resources provided to that task force. Particularly during this surge period when a lot of families are registering and when there is an information vacuum, if the government can support that task force by providing extra personnel, I think that would be a good thing and they would have the opposition’s full support in doing that.
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