Page 266 - Week 01 - Thursday, 24 February 1994
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I heard Mr De Domenico interject on the issue of the trade union picnic day. He has always been an opponent of the trade union picnic day. He has always been an opponent of the comradeship of the trade union movement. He has always tried to undo the old trade union picnic day. The trade union picnic day is something which is owned by the trade union movement and it is incorporated in various awards around the Territory. Madam Speaker, the matter of the picnic day is in the unions' hands. Thankfully, it is not in Mr De Domenico's hands. This Government will not be moving to undo the TLC picnic day. It is a day which has some history in this Territory, and it will be there for a long time. It is for the unions to decide what they do with it, not the Liberals opposite, and this Government will not be interfering.
Department of Education and Training - Separation Scheme
MR CORNWELL: Madam Speaker, my question is to the Minister for Education, Mr Wood. Is it a fact that the Department of Education's targeted separation scheme has gone badly wrong, with money running out, so that the round two applicants, including principals and deputies, are receiving significantly less money from the packages - I have heard the figure of $40,000 mentioned, compared with $70,000 for the original scheme - than their colleagues in round one? If so, what is being done to provide social and financial justice to these round two applicants?
MR WOOD: Madam Speaker, it is not a fact that the redundancy scheme has gone awry. It worked very well indeed. Something like 203 packages have been taken up, with benefits to schoolteachers as outlined here before. The basis of Mr Cornwell's question is clearly wrong when I can say that there have been no round two offers made. There have not been any round two offers.
Housing Trust - Property Sales and Purchases
MR STEVENSON: My question is to Mr Connolly in his capacity as Housing Minister. How many dwellings are currently held by the ACT Housing Trust, including flats; how many properties have been sold to tenants, and for other reasons, during the last few years; and how many properties have been purchased during that same period?
MR CONNOLLY: Mr Stevenson did indicate that he would be interested in the number of home sales, so I had the figures updated. The portfolio stands at about 12,500 homes. I do not have the precise number of the portfolio at the moment. The sales to tenants scheme was reintroduced in April 1991, with a 10-year continuous tenancy criterion applied at that time by the then Liberal Government. We amended that tenancy criterion in 1993-94 to eight continuous years. That change applied from October 1993.
Since April 1991 a total of 109 properties have been sold, with the total revenue standing at $11.978m. The average sale price was about $109,000, or almost $110,000. That average figure is rising. That average figure indicates that, by and large, we have not been selling properties in the old inner city area; we have not, by and large, been selling the very expensive homes. Of those 109 properties, eight have been sold since the eligibility criterion was reduced to eight years.
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