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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 5 Hansard (14 May) . . Page.. 1389 ..

MS HORODNY: I ask a supplementary question.

MR SPEAKER: Do you want another chop at it, Ms Horodny?

MS HORODNY: You will be spending many weeks out in the electorates looking at trees that have been taken down and not replaced, Mr Kaine. It is a problem. The pruning and spraying that normally used to happen do not seem to be happening now and instead the trees are being cut down. I am very happy to show you where constituents have alerted me to it.

Mrs Carnell: I raise a point of order. This is a preamble.

MR SPEAKER: Ms Horodny, are you making a statement or asking a supplementary question?

MS HORODNY: I am getting to a question. Mr Kaine, could you table any policy documents or guidelines on the maintenance program for street trees in Canberra?

MR KAINE: Yes, I will get copies of whatever guidelines and policy statements there are, and I am only too happy to table them.

Housing Funding

MS REILLY: Mr Speaker, my question is to the Minister for Housing, Mr Stefaniak. Given the announcement in last night's budget delivered by your Federal colleague Mr Costello that there would be a $200m cut over four years in the funding for the Commonwealth-State Housing Agreement, can you tell the Assembly how much less the ACT will receive, noting that Mrs Carnell has already chopped $15.5m out of the ACT housing budget in 1996-97 and 1997-98?

MR STEFANIAK: Ms Reilly, there you go again. I am interested that you bring up that figure of $15.5m over the last two years. That is really a nonsense because, as you know, last year when Mrs Carnell gave the $10.8m back to the Federal Government, as she had to, we made that up out of sales. There is flexibility in housing for that. The claim that we are cutting $15.5m from the housing budget is a plain furphy. It was adjusted in other ways.

You mentioned that last night the Commonwealth Government cut $50m from the housing budget this financial year, starting next year. I do not particularly want to see any cut, Ms Reilly, although I appreciate, as my colleagues have said earlier today, that we live in difficult times and your lot left us a $10 billion black hole. Any cut, of course, is not welcome. That, I think, was about the lowest cut being bandied about over the last three months. I am at least thankful for that.

Ms Reilly: No, it cuts even lower.

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