Page 4050 - Week 12 - Wednesday, 30 November 2022
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submissions that it took, it has been an effective use of time to be able to get to the point where the report is going to be tabled tomorrow. I am very much looking forward to being able to start work on implementing the recommendations and working through how best to do that with the unions involved, with CHS and with the workers involved, and being mindful of the fact that we are talking about care for people who are very unwell. We want to be able to provide them with the best possible clinical care. All of that does actually take a bit of time. To have announced in May that this was going to happen, and being at the point where we are able to table the report tomorrow, is actually quite a good use of time.
MS CASTLEY: Minister, will you guarantee that the entire report will be tabled, and that you will not bury it, like the heritage report we heard about yesterday, given that the Greens continually talk about transparency in government?
MR BARR: It will be tabled in accordance with the Inquiries Act.
Housing ACT—asset stock
MR PARTON: Madam Speaker, my question is to the Chief Minister. Chief Minister, I refer to the Asset Recycling Initiative agreement with the commonwealth which directed money to the light rail project. As part of the agreement, your government agreed to keep the number of public housing dwellings in the ACT above 10,848. In the chamber last week you specifically referred to it, you said “the agreement required that there be no diminution over time of housing.” According to the 2021-22 annual reports, the number of public housing dwellings has fallen to 10,723 which is indeed 125 fewer than the figure you agreed to as an absolute floor number of dwellings. Chief Minister, how have you allowed your government to drop the total stock over 100 properties below the agreed stock level?
MR BARR: If Mr Parton read the further detail of the Asset Recycling Initiative he would understand it has an expiry date as well. The rationale for there being a number lower at this point has been well canvassed by the Minister for Housing. We are undertaking an extensive renewal program. At this point in the program cycle there are fewer houses but in time there will be more.
MR PARTON: Chief Minister, is it the case then as you have just stated, that the only reason you kept public housing above this level was to get the money for the tram, and once you had it you were happy to let it fall under that figure?
MR BARR: No, Madam Speaker. What the government has done is invest in the renewal of our public housing stock and—and!—invest in public transport. Two things your side of politics would never do.
MS LEE: Chief Minister, when will the number of dwellings get back above the 10,848 that you promised as part of the agreement with the commonwealth?
MR BARR: Again, the agreement with the commonwealth was for a defined period of time.
Opposition members interjecting—
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