Page 1545 - Week 06 - Tuesday, 17 May 1994
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .
MR CONNOLLY: Madam Speaker, really it is about better enforcement. It is to ensure that we have licences to help defray some of the cost of enforcement. The cost of enforcement should be borne by the industry rather than the public at large. It basically is to give us a tighter control of existing health regulations. We have not just recently banned selling salmonella tainted food. We are trying to get a better fix on what is going on out there and make sure that our inspections are more regular. We can categorise some premises as higher risk, which we could inspect more often, and some as lower risk. If Mr Stevenson is interested, I am happy to provide him with a briefing by public health officials. They can take him through the whole regime.
Housing Trust Tenants - Narrabundah
MR CORNWELL: Madam Speaker, my question is addressed to the Minister for Housing and Community Services. I was interested in his predecessor's answer a little earlier that it was not possible to catch up in Health and that there was a longstanding problem there. I would like to draw the Minister's attention to another longstanding problem by asking: What action can local residents expect from you as the new Minister for Housing against the unacceptable behaviour of one family of trust tenants in Matina Street in Narrabundah? This matter was first raised with the trust and the ACT police in February, Minister, and with your predecessor by me by letter on 10 March and again on 18 March, when I received representations from individual residents.
Mr Berry: Madam Speaker, I raise a point of order to caution members about using the protection of this Assembly to focus on individual families in our community. I think that is a pretty awful precedent to be setting. It does not give this place much of an image if individual families can in some way be targeted in this Assembly. The better course is to approach the Minister directly with the information and try to work your way through the problem rather than target individual families.
Mr Cornwell: What standing order are you using?
MADAM SPEAKER: I assume that the point refers to the standing order on the citizen's right of reply, which in fact has that note of caution in it. Proceed, Mr Cornwell.
MR CORNWELL: Madam Speaker, may I add that this matter has already been the subject of a newspaper report on 28 April. Minister, four months have now passed without replies to my letters or any action being taken against these tenants who have made life a misery for neighbours and the local community and who are clearly and repeatedly in breach of their tenancy agreement - which, as we all know, requires people not to be a nuisance or cause a disturbance to other tenants or occupiers of any other property in the neighbourhood.
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .