Page 86 - Week 01 - Tuesday, 12 February 2008
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development along the north-south and east-west axis in that area. I have obtained a commonwealth commitment to funding contributions and work has commenced.
In short, the Stanhope government has a decision-making process that ensures that we get on with the job. Problems are identified and studied, solutions are proposed and then the most cost-effective solution is adopted. This decision-making process was put in place when we were elected in 2001, and it has been refined since. Community engagement is at the heart of the process. A professional, apolitical public service is used to carry out the community engagement. That approach has led to reforms across the board.
In the areas I am responsible for, we have reformed public housing in the ACT through holding a series of workshop and summits. We have established resident consultative bodies across all public housing. We have reformed the approach to and administration of community housing. We have cut the waiting lists, people in need are housed faster, and the approach to maintenance is more systematic rather than ad hoc or reactionary. Additional millions of dollars are put into increasing our housing stock, and we are working cooperatively with the commonwealth and state and territory governments to ensure the continuation of commonwealth funding of public housing.
In addition, the Stanhope government’s decision-making approach has reformed the area of multiculturalism. When we came to government, there was strife and turmoil in the multicultural community. I hesitate to lay the blame for that on the Howard Liberal government’s approach to our immigrants, but they certainly did not help. Now, however, the ACT is a model for other communities in how to live multiculturally. We opened the first multicultural centre in the nation—a centre where different groups can have offices and conduct functions, and where they can work in harmony. The community is certainly far more cohesive than it ever has been, and all because of my consultative approach.
Reforms like these are only possible because of the Stanhope government’s decision-making approach—community consultation followed by a robust cabinet process and decisions implemented by a professional public service. How much consultation did those opposite with ministerial experience conduct? Mr Smyth and Mr Stefaniak were key members of the Carnell cabinet, and I have already outlined some of their decisions. Mr Smyth and Mr Stefaniak have never been called to account for what they did, nor have they ever explained their role in the financial mismanagement and poor cabinet process followed by the Carnell government.
I recall that that cabinet also contained a person who had been elected as an Independent member of the Assembly. Under the system of minority government then prevailing, he was able to use his power to obtain a cabinet position and further his agenda rather than a whole-of-government agenda. I am sure the Liberal Party would welcome a return to those “divide and conquer” days, with the chaotic decision making that it entailed, but I am not so sure that the Canberra community wants to ever return to minority government.
The opposition think they are on a winner by attacking me and the decision-making process as it is viewed from outside the system. They overlook the fact that the
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