Page 4305 - Week 13 - Thursday, 4 December 2014
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video
We have heard this loud and clear. We have heard it loud and clear from constituents individually. All of my members have had long dealings and communication with affected Mr Fluffy home owners. I know that those opposite have as well. Of course, we have heard from many people, both in the inquiry hearings but also in the submissions made to the public accounts committee.
I would like to take this opportunity to praise the public accounts committee for their work. I think that the genuine, cooperative nature of the inquiry, the excellent hearings and the report that you have collectively produced have brought credit to you and the secretariat. But it also has shown, I hope, that the members of this Assembly do have the interests of the community at heart.
Madam Speaker, it is often the view that we are in here playing politics. I do hope that the actions of your committee have demonstrated that, at the first point, the most important thing is to represent our constituents and their interests. The recommendations of the committee are bipartisan and, in the main, I agree with them. As I said, I do urge the government to consider those recommendations in good faith.
In response to the dozens, if not hundreds, of representations that the opposition has received to the committee inquiry, we have formed a view that although we support the appropriation today and we support the need for the houses to be demolished eventually, we do need to see changes to the government’s program to make it fairer and more flexible.
With regard to demolition, we have looked at this in some detail. The first international conference on asbestos awareness and management in Melbourne in November this year recognised that the ACT government’s decision to demolish all Mr Fluffy homes is the only viable option, and we accept this decision. We accept that demolishing all of the houses eventually is based on best advice and we accept that decision.
The government’s plan, though, contains a number of elements, and if you go to the government’s plan—it is available on the web and it is referred to in the committee’s report—it has guiding principles. The objectives of the plan are to eliminate the ongoing risk, and I certainly support that; to provide a fair outcome for owners and affected houses, and of course we support that; to provide so far as is possible and reasonable flexibility and options for informed choices to be made by owners of affected homes, and I support that; and to minimise the overall net cost to the Canberra community.
The problem is, Madam Speaker, as I alluded to and as Mr Smyth and others have said in their response to the committee report, the plan does not actually adhere to those principles, and Mr Fluffy home owners have made that clear. It is not fair and it is not flexible.
At the outset, the point is that this is meant to be a voluntary scheme. The problem is, though, that if you are a Mr Fluffy home owner, essentially, as many people told us in their words, they feel like they have a gun to their heads because the government is
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video