Page 1127 - Week 04 - Tuesday, 10 April 2018
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needed to fund it spent, before the appropriation had been made. At this point the report notes that it is central to our system of government that the Assembly considers the appropriation in the shape of an appropriation bill before expenditure is incurred and money is expended.
A third line of comment concerns the replacement of aluminium cladding at the Centenary Hospital for Women and Children. In this instance, answers provided to the committee were not clear, and the committee states that it would welcome clearer answers in future.
These are the substantive matters raised in the report. The committee would like to thank the Chief Minister and Treasurer, the minister for education, the minister for health and their officers for making themselves available at short notice for an inquiry with a short time line. I thank all those associated with the inquiry, my colleagues and the committee secretariat for the work involved in turning this around. I commend the report to the Assembly.
Debate (on motion by Ms Berry) adjourned to the next sitting.
Ministerial delegation to Wellington
Ministerial statement
MS BERRY (Ginninderra—Deputy Chief Minister, Minister for Education and Early Childhood Development, Minister for Housing and Suburban Development, Minister for the Prevention of Domestic and Family Violence, Minister for Women and Minister for Sport and Recreation) (10.18): Last month I led a four-day mission to Wellington to further develop the Canberra-Wellington sister city relationship and also to hold ministerial and stakeholder meetings across my portfolios. It is fair to say that there is a strong fondness for Canberra in Wellington.
I was able to meet with four city councillors, including Mayor Justin Lester and Deputy Mayor Jill Day, as well leading city officials and administrators across a number of fields. All were incredibly complimentary of our work and spoke of the connections flourishing in their areas of work. Importantly, we spoke of the connections yet to be made, and during a number of meetings and site visits I was able to do some early work in this regard.
The Canberra-Wellington sister city agreement makes specific mention of opportunities to collaborate in our work on affordable housing and in sport. Accordingly, I made housing a strong focus of the mission, and I was joined by the Deputy Director-General of the Environment, Planning and Sustainable Development Directorate and the Executive Director of Housing ACT for housing-focused meetings and site visits. These officials were also able to meet with Wellington’s chief planner as part of the mission.
Members may know that the New Zealand government elected last year has set out with a housing affordability agenda front and centre in its policy platform. In this regard, I was able to meet with the national Minister for Housing and Urban Development, the Hon Phil Twyford, to share experiences and points of overlap. He
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