Kevin Andrews (Menzies, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Families, Housing and Human Services) Share this | Hansard source

I have three related questions, Minister. Firstly, can you explain why, according to the recent report from the Australian National Audit Office, the government approved $159.4 million for the Victorian Labor government in August 2009 to redevelop public housing but paid for it out of the federal Housing Affordability Fund, even though that fund's objective is to improve housing affordability through infrastructure and regulatory reform and not to redevelop public housing. Secondly, can you explain whether the then Acting Prime Minister Julia Gillard's decision to approve an extension to the HAF parameters that applied only to the three Victorian public housing redevelopments was an attempt to help out her old boss, John Brumby, to get re-elected in that state in November 2010. And, thirdly, why did the then minister for social housing, Ms Plibersek, approve on 23 June 2009 three public housing redevelopments in New South Wales, South Australia and Tasmania simply to ensure that the 2009-10 HAF budget was spent rather than being rolled over into the next financial year, despite receiving handwritten advice from one of her ministerial advisers that the projects were 'fundamentally different from the purposes of HAF'?

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