Page 267 - Week 01 - Thursday, 24 February 1994
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Since October 1993, when we introduced the eight-year criterion, of those eight homes, four have been purchased with the government HomeBuyer fund finance, that is the trust finance, and the other four were purchased through private finance. While we do not have precise statistics, the advice I have from senior officers is that that is about right - that about half of the homes that we sell tend to be sold through our own finance arrangement and about half of them tend to be sold through private finance.
There are currently 70 applications before the Government and 13 are pending imminent settlement. Under the HomeBuyer program, since its inception again in 1991, something like 980 loans have been settled. Going back to when we first started having Housing Trust homes available for sale, there have been 109 properties sold, and in the equivalent time some 980 loans have been approved by HomeBuyer, which means that a lot more people have gone out onto the private market and have purchased privately.
MR STEVENSON: I ask a supplementary question. Could you indicate the difference between the private loans and the government loans? Could you give the details, if you have them?
MR CONNOLLY: Madam Speaker, essentially the ACT Government HomeBuyer loan program is an easy start loan scheme. I will give Mr Stevenson a full briefing on how the scheme works. The thing to point out is that it does differ from the Homefund scheme in New South Wales which was rather dangerous in that it attracted people on a very unrealistic basis. We are quite rigorous in the way the ACT HomeBuyer loan scheme operates. I often get representations from individuals and from members asking us to be a bit more favourable in applying the guidelines to individuals. It is a perfectly proper role, of course, for members to write to Ministers asking us to intervene on behalf of individuals; but we are very careful because they went badly wrong in New South Wales. They were overly generous in providing loans for people who got themselves into low start loan commitments which they were simply unable to service. That sent a lot of people in New South Wales bankrupt and the Government there is now facing a substantial billion-dollar-plus shortfall. Our loan scheme has been operating very successfully and is in the black rather than in the red. I will provide Mr Stevenson later with a precise breakdown on how the scheme operates.
Woden Valley Hospital - Surgery-Free Day
MR HUMPHRIES: Madam Speaker, my question is to the Minister for Health. Can the Minister confirm that tomorrow is a surgery-free day at Woden Valley Hospital? Can the Minister tell us what a surgery-free day means?
MR BERRY: Madam Speaker, the surgery-free day to which Mr Humphries refers is the common use of rostered days off and so on to ensure that - - -
Mrs Carnell: The waiting list gets longer.
MR BERRY: No.
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