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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 11 Hansard (4 November) . . Page.. 3534 ..
MR STEFANIAK (continuing):
If you have any instances of any improper practices, any indications of where you think someone has not been properly treated - apart from the normal avenues your constituent might have in relation to that, such as the Housing Appeals Tribunal, the committee there, or perhaps taking it up directly with a senior member of Housing - no doubt you could give me some details of whom you were referring to and I could take that up as well.
The reason we have procedures is that there are always a number of tenants who want certain types of housing. Certainly, people who seek priority housing often have very traumatic circumstances that need to be taken into account, and action needs to happen as swiftly as possible. I think it is very important that there are strong procedures in place there and procedures that are followed so that people do not jump the queue. It is always a worry that there might be instances of people perhaps jumping the queue. If persons are not in that sort of situation, if they are the ones being jumped, naturally they would see that as a problem. That is why it is absolutely essential, I think, to have strong procedures there. But as you are no doubt well aware, if there are certain situations that need urgent attention and you feel that people are not getting a fair go from anyone in Housing, you can come and see me about it.
MS REILLY: I have a supplementary question, Mr Speaker. Minister, does ACT Housing have available to all its housing tenants clear, written policy on wait-turn lists and transfer and policy allocation procedures? Minister, will you table, by close of business today, copies of these policies?
MR STEFANIAK: I do not know whether I can table any policies by close of business, Ms Reilly, but at the first available opportunity in terms of any relevant information that you seek I will seek to table it.
MS TUCKER: My question is to Mr Kaine, Minister for Urban Services. Mr Kaine, my question is related to green power. I would like to congratulate the Government on introducing the green power scheme. It has been a significant turnaround, but one we welcome. I do have a concern, though, that, under the comparable scheme in New South Wales, the maximum that you would pay is 40 per cent more on your bill. At the moment it is considerably more than that under this scheme in the ACT. Are you working with ACTEW to introduce a staggered scheme for consumers to participate in the green power option?
MR KAINE: Mr Speaker, I think that ACTEW has gone as far as it intends to go in the immediate future in establishing the green power tariff that it has gone for already, bearing in mind, of course, that ACTEW does not of itself determine these tariffs. We now have a pricing commissioner that looks at these matters. Obviously, there is a tariff that has been agreed upon and put in place that took into account the charges that applied in New South Wales for green power. It was not done just in isolation from everything that has been going on around us. Any change to that tariff, as with the normal tariff, will be put into effect only after review by the pricing commissioner. In fact, we are just preparing terms of reference for the next round of review by the commissioner to see
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