Page 3705 - Week 12 - Wednesday, 28 October 2015
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it. We have Liberal members calling for it; we have Labor members calling for it; we have the affected Mr Fluffy home owners calling for it. It would appear now that the person who is blocking this from occurring is Mr Barr. It is down to Mr Barr.
Having dealt with both Ms Gallagher, the previous responsible minister, and Mr Barr over this issue, I get a sense that Ms Gallagher was far more empathetic, far more understanding of the plight of the home owners—whilst understanding the impacts on budgets and other things—than Mr Barr, who seems to be somewhat uninterested in the plight of the home owners and far more interested in the budgetary impacts.
As I said before, the impact on our community is well understood, both financially and in terms of health and so on. There are various home owners who have been impacted by this saga. There are allegations that Mr Barr has declined to meet with a number of groups. He said he was going to attend forums and then did not attend forums. Over the course of this process, I have met with dozens of impacted families, as I know my colleagues and Labor members have. I do not think you can meet with the people impacted and then come away unaffected by this, come away not understanding the importance of moving our whole community forward to make sure that we learn the lessons, that we have resolution on what has happened and that this never happens again.
When you examine the Mr Fluffy saga without the benefit of a board of inquiry, it is clear that, over a period of decades, information was available and decisions were made that led to this point. I think it could have been averted, could have been prevented, could have been dealt with in a far better way. There were the original Mr Fluffy decisions about allowing this to occur and the original remediation plan at massive cost that eventually proved to be a failure in a sense through to where we find ourselves today and the impact on certain groups in our community. I think particularly of home owners who have been in their home for a long time—elderly people who have been in those homes for many years, people who are now going to be financially disadvantaged to the point where they will be forced to leave their block of land, their home and, in many cases, their community. I could go on and on.
I was speaking to a Mr Fluffy home owner just this morning. Mr Kefford—who is in the chamber today; I acknowledge him here—is aware of this case, and I have written to the Chief Minister about it. It is unique in how tragic it is. This is a family with a profoundly disabled child. He is 16 years old. He has spastic quadriplegia; he has essentially been brain damaged from birth. We have a situation where they have been through enormous suffering in their lives but are people who have stepped up to look after their child over the last 16 years and now find themselves in a Mr Fluffy home to which they have made significant renovations to make sure that it is fit for purpose for their son. They now find themselves in a position where they are going to be essentially out on the street and virtually penniless unless action is taken. I am hoping that will not come to pass, but that is one of many similar stories that I have heard, a tragedy from this program.
Yes, there are great budgetary concerns. The original remediation program cost millions; this current program is costing hundreds of millions. There are massive complexities about government decisions and bureaucratic decisions. But ultimately
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