Page 2249 - Week 08 - Tuesday, 28 August 2007
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The complete reshaping of the community housing sector, the emphatic narrowing of public housing eligibility and the changes to the rules governing public housing tenancies, the deep cuts made to the SAAP sector overall, the halving of funds to peak housing organisations, the abandonment of any commitment to a public transport system that addresses the needs of all, the dramatic changes to the provision of public education targeting particular schools and demographics and the closing of libraries and shopfronts all warranted a much closer analysis both before implementation and, once again, after the damage had begun.
But that has not happened. I am concerned that the Community Inclusion Board does not have sufficient impact on government policy across the board. Now that it can no longer give grants, it lacks the capacity to make innovative investments off its own bat and does not enjoy a continuing commitment from government. Is it allowed to do the work it would like to do? Does it have adequate resources? Does it engage sufficiently with community organisations? The future of the Community Inclusion Board remains uncertain. It was announced with great pomp and ceremony before the last election. Perhaps its revitalised successor will be similarly announced next year.
Moving on, I think there are some real questions to ask around the Live in Canberra campaign. My reading of the information is that the plan has already spent $400,000 and resulted in only 100 new people to the region. The government’s own figures indicate a population growth of only 21,000 from 1996 to 2006.
If you look at the water supply, the fragile ecological communities around us and the unknown impacts of climate change, does it not make sense to make some judgement about how big Canberra and its region should get? However, if the commonwealth public service continues to expand—and my guess is that it will be reduced when Mr Rudd comes in, as he promised, but then will be increased again, much as it did under Howard—given that there will be changes to be made to personnel, then more people will come. After all, the upper levels of the public service, the SES offer very good packages these days, enough even to attract people from the corporate sector.
But I question whether it will be the ACT government’s Live in Canberra campaign that brings them here. Instead, I would argue that we need to be increasing services, supporting the arts and creative industries, looking for a range of affordable housing solutions, ensuring a good supply of high quality childcare and pursuing a user friendly and energy efficient public transport system.
I want briefly to address arts funding. Arts funding is indicative. It has been said—by an arts patron, obviously—that when the arts attract as much funding as sport, we will be a balanced society. While the arts grants process appears to be working well and the members of the peer panels that support some applications over others do their best to spread the available resources fairly, there are some bigger problems that are not being addressed.
Now that the school of art and the school of music have been absorbed into the ANU, they would appear to be losing their artistic base. One would have thought it would be possible to sustain a symphony orchestra in Canberra and so sustain the teaching of a
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