Page 287 - Week 02 - Tuesday, 20 February 1990
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Public Housing
MRS GRASSBY: My question is to Mr Kaine as the Treasurer. With respect to your stated policy as Treasurer on housing, which states that you will not reduce public housing stock in the ACT, does that mean that funds will only be available to maintain the housing stock at existing levels, or will funds only be available to maintain the relative proportion of public housing to the total of housing?
MR KAINE: I am not sure what the purpose of the question is, but, of course, Mrs Grassby would be aware, having been responsible for these matters herself, that we operate under the Commonwealth-State Housing Agreement. It states, quite explicitly, what we can do in terms of funds that become available, for example, from the sale of public housing. Under that agreement the funds must be put back into additional public housing. So we really do not have a great deal of flexibility in determining, for example - to quote the Leader of the Opposition - if we can have a "fire sale", if we can sell off some public housing. The only purpose to which that money can be put is to buy more public housing. So I do not know what the hue and cry is about.
Executive Deputies' Duties
MR WHALAN: Mr Speaker, I would like to ask a question of Trevor Kaine as the Treasurer and Minister responsible for allocating duties and resources to Executive Deputies. At a recent meeting of retailers to protest about the extension of trading hours, Mrs Nolan informed the meeting that she had written letters about the matter to 600 shopkeepers.
I refer you to the guidelines of the relationship between Ministers and Executive Deputies, particularly to that part which says that Executive Deputies may be responsible for signing correspondence on behalf of Ministers as directed. Did Mrs Nolan sign these letters to the 600 shopkeepers in her capacity as a backbencher or as an Executive Deputy? If the latter, was she directed to by Mr Duby, and what was the cost?
MR KAINE: I do not know in what capacity Mrs Nolan signed those letters. I have not seen one, and I do not know whether there was any cost to the public or not. Mrs Nolan is entitled as a member of this Assembly to write to anybody that she chooses as a matter of constituency work, just as members of the Opposition did when they were in Government, and just as I am sure they do now. I can pursue the matter with Mrs Nolan, but if I am going to do that I might pursue the matter of some of the people that you write letters to as well and the circumstances under which you write them.
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