Page 1264 - Week 04 - Wednesday, 29 March 2017
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great deal to members of our community and which is causing voters in my area a whole new wave of stress and distress. This is what this place is for, it is what we are here for: to represent local matters.
What this government is proposing stinks, and it stinks on two levels. It stinks that the vulnerable who have lived in difficult circumstances in these barely habitable Northbourne Avenue properties with all their personal issues for years, near the city centre, are being moved to places where they do not necessarily want to go. I know the minister constantly says people will have a choice but they will only have a choice between different suburbs of Weston Creek and Woden. It also stinks because, with the usual zero consultation, the government is moving one great wall of public housing from Civic and recreating it in sections in Weston Creek and Woden.
I do not need to remind the minister that the definition of consultation includes the following: discussion, dialogue, disclosure, discourse, debate, conference and deliberation. None of that is going to occur because the minister has made it very clear that she is immovable on this issue and will not be changing the scope or the size of these developments.
Ms Berry: I have not said that at all.
MRS JONES: I hope that that is not true but that is what we can take from what has been said in this place even today. These people are being removed from their homes, their friendships, their communities, their doctors, their chemists, and are being relocated to areas that are not within walking distance of most public amenities let alone jobs. They will not be able to get to public transport as easily.
Weston Creek residents are constantly complaining about the fact that they only have an hourly bus service all day, except in peak hours. It makes it almost impossible for people without a car, who want to have a life that brings them in and out of Woden, in and out of the city, to do shopping and to have appointments. Already we have a problem there and we are putting these people out there without additional services.
I have recently been approached by people being moved and approached by, as Mr Parton said, one chemist who cares for a number of these people who says that they are under increasing stress because they actually do not know where they are going yet. They are on increasing levels of anxiety medications and antidepressants and are fearing what is being done to them. Some tenants at least are certainly stressed, and that is the feedback we have from both them and the local service delivery. But the tenants are only the beginning.
I represent the electorate of Murrumbidgee. Our electorate is planned to take the vast majority of Northbourne Avenue flat residents. What does the government have against Weston Creek residents not to start a conversation with them before a decision is made? This reminds me quite a lot of something that happened last term in my electorate as well. Is the electorate of Murrumbidgee not poor enough for the minister to be worried about? Is it not rich enough for the Chief Minister to worry about and think fondly of because they do not dine with people in this electorate?
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