Page 3831 - Week 13 - Tuesday, 4 December 2007
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Well done on that. I understand that the plume has been there for about 22 years. TAMS and Urban Services managed it as best they could. But if you had known about that, and you have had 6½ years, and you now have the money to fix it, then, whilst it is a good initiative, it is another classic case of “why on earth could that not have gone in the budget that we passed in June?” Anyway, I think it is a good initiative so I give you marks for that. But a lot of things in this budget seem to have been included as though they were afterthoughts in the second appropriation bill—afterthoughts that should not have been afterthoughts but should have been in the first bill.
In terms of some initiatives, I come to JACS. I have already commented on these. This is a portfolio I have responsibility for and it is worth noting that I welcome the initiatives. I am concerned, however, about the initiative to fund police to support a multi-agency pilot project aimed at addressing crime and antisocial behaviour in high-density public housing. That is a real problem; Mrs Burke and I get a number of complaints about that problem on a regular basis. It is a good initiative but you will not know what role the police will have until early February, and that is of concern.
If you have an initiative, and you have it in a second appropriation bill, surely you have worked out what your initiative aims to do. That is a problem—although, if you get it right, it has the potential to deliver a good service to a section of the community that goes through a lot of hell from incredibly disruptive tenants and other people who come in, cause havoc and commit crime in these complexes.
I applaud your initiative to fund 5,000 engine immobilisers—that is a good initiative—and to trial anchor bolts in public motorcycle parking bays. As well as that, there are your initiatives in relation to sexual assault reforms. I have already spoken on those. They are good initiatives save in one aspect. From page 24 of the report, I am pleased to see that the committee welcomes the program but notes that aspects of it should have been delivered earlier.
Those aspects include the need for law reform. They are funded—you are doing it in a slow way—but other states and territories already have significant legislation on the books to protect victims of crime, to ensure, for example, that victims of sexual assault have to give evidence only once and be cross-examined only once. We still do not have that protection in the ACT. It will still take at least until next year—midway through next year at the earliest. There will still be victims. We have seen two or three in the last couple of months who have suffered as a result of our laws not being up to date with other laws. I commend the rest of your program there, though. It will greatly assist. So there are some good initiatives in relation to that area.
I talked about afterthoughts. Another afterthought is the allocation to implement the climate change strategy. Here we have an afterthought with a total cost of $836,000. The government has known about its climate change strategy for months—probably years. It has taken long enough to deliver—and what an absolute fizzer it was when that happened. Yet its implementation has to be an afterthought in a second appropriation.
I note that water demand is dealt with at page 18 of the report. I am pleased to see the plan to put some funding into retro-fitting dual-flush toilets and low-water-use urinals
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