Ministers with mixed messages, from left, Rachel Stephen-Smith, Yvette Berry, Chris Steel, Andrew Barr and Tara Cheyne. 

“Blaming the very people our elected representatives and public servants are expected to serve is a common response by ministers and senior public servants.” JON STANHOPE & KHALID AHMED look closely at how this government treats us. 

Statements and comments by ACT government ministers that defy logic, common sense or which contradict evidence in their own agencies’ reports, have become a regular occurrence.

It is often unclear if a particular public comment is designed to divert attention from poor performance, to shift blame from a “stuff up” or simply an ill-thought-out and ignorant explanation or excuse.

Unfortunately, it’s not only ministers but also professional senior public servants who, out of misplaced loyalty, join in to support their minister. Blaming the very people our elected representatives and public servants are expected to serve and assist is a common response.

For example, Health Minister Rachel Stephen-Smith sought to justify the worst hospital wait times in Australia by claiming that not only had the overall complexity of patients’ presentations increased, but that there was also an increase in people attending the hospitals who did not need to be there – both could not be the case at the same time and, in fact, neither was correct. 

On another occasion, the minister refused to answer a question or seek the advice of her department about a raft of unfilled clinical positions because, apparently, it would take too much effort. We are uncertain whether it occurred to the minister that it is part of her job to know about unfilled positions and, indeed, to fill them.

A senior health bureaucrat also infamously advised Canberrans not to turn up at the emergency department with a “minor” problem such as a headache or pain in the arm, despite these being generally accepted symptoms of a possible stroke or a heart attack, respectively. Such advice is surely more than a tad irresponsible. 

Housing Minister Yvette Berry, when confronted by data on the decrease in public housing stock claimed that her much touted “growth and renewal” program wasn’t actually intended to increase (grow) the stock of public housing.

Ms Berry had earlier claimed that the ACT’s homelessness was a result of interstate migration – in other words, people were apparently coming to Canberra to become homeless!

Then there is Chris Steel, while treasurer-in-waiting, urging more borrowings at a time the territory was – and still is – borrowing, including in order to pay the interest on past borrowings.

The then Treasurer, Andrew Barr, instigated an astounding debt strategy under which debt would apparently become smaller relative to the economy.

That strategy would have entailed a doubling of the economy in just four years because debt was growing at that rate – so unlikely that it could reasonably be considered impossible.

The “strategy” clearly failed to placate the rating agencies, and the ACT has, relatively, the second highest level of debt In Australia and is heading towards an annual interest bill of a billion dollars.

Transgressions on our common sense of decency

Our fellow columnist, Hugh Selby, recently wrote about “common decency” and how the actions of ACT Corrections management in conducting a strip search on a distressed Aboriginal woman with a heart condition and a history of sexual abuse, could readily be seen to be unacceptable even without a lengthy court case.

Transgressions on our common sense of decency, whether in utterances or in actions, are most worrying. Statements defying common sense or based on silly logic or wrong arithmetic, while at one level laughable, may if pursued have significant adverse financial or economic consequences.

However, those defying common decency can potentially shift the community’s perceptions of what is not acceptable, distort its values and fundamentally change who we are.

Common decency can indeed be distorted – repeat something often enough and what was “unacceptable” becomes “tolerable” then “acceptable”, and ultimately “preferred”. It is beside the point whether that arises from some philosophical framework, the pursuit of narrow objectives, ignorance, insensitivity (I’m all right Jack) or simply being out of touch.

There are numerous examples nationally, including but not limited to, the indefinite detention of asylum seekers and the treatment of those on welfare under the robodebt scheme.

Heartless eviction of long-term public housing tenants

In the ACT the relocation of more than a thousand voiceless public housing tenants from Northbourne Avenue to pay for the tram progressed into the attempted forced evictions of more than 300 mainly elderly women and disabled people.

While the heartless eviction of these long-term public housing tenants has resulted in legal action before the Supreme Court for breaching human rights, the Canberra community has, if the deafening silence accompanying the evictions is a guide, apparently been desensitised to the massive decline in public housing and the wholescale eviction of tenants.

The treatment of prisoners and Aboriginal people in general, and the treatment of vulnerable homeowners by the asbestos taskforce are further examples about which we have written.

Relevantly, City Services Minister Tara Cheyne has reportedly claimed that some homeless people “would prefer whatever their lifestyle might be in that situation”. Yes, it’s a matter of choice, she said and that it is “not as simple as putting people into housing or into a hotel”. 

Ms Cheyne’s comments were in the context of homeless people being moved by City Services rangers from Civic to clear the space for a festival. She did not provide any evidence of how many, if any, of the homeless people had been offered accommodation which they refused.

Community advocates and service providers advised that some people could not be housed due to the lack of availability and diversity of housing, and the absence of mental health and other support services to maintain tenancy. Nevertheless, neither Ms Cheyne nor her colleague and Minister for Housing, Ms Yvette Berry have provided any response or clarification.

Data published by the Productivity Commission, however, leads us to accept and endorse the view expressed by community advocates.

We have previously written about the nominal decrease in public housing dwellings in Canberra as well as the more significant decrease in stock relative to population.

In 2023-24, the wait time for households in greatest need (ie, homeless, in housing inappropriate to their needs, in housing that is adversely affecting their health or placing their life and safety at risk) was seven months.

No grand plan to change nation-worst standards

In just two years the 75th percentile wait time has blown out from 18 months in 2021-22 to 32 months in 2023-24.

However, it is unlikely that any of the homeless who were moved on by the rangers are on the waiting list. It would be difficult for them to qualify under the eligibility criteria, which requires them to demonstrate that they can maintain a tenancy, that they do not have significant mental health or drug and alcohol issues, which may be the cause of their homelessness in the first place.

They would, of course, qualify for crisis accommodation under the homelessness program. However, the ACT government’s expenditure on homelessness services has decreased by 4.2 per cent in real terms over the two years from 2021-22 to 2023-24. Nationally, it increased by 3.9 per cent , with WA, NT, Tasmania and Queensland recording increases ranging from 9.1 per cent to 69.7 per cent. 

The decrease in per capita expenditure in the ACT (that is, considering the population increase) was even larger at 7.6 per cent. The proportion of clients receiving support to maintain a tenancy dropped from 33 per cent in 2021-22 to 24.5 per cent in 2023-24.

We do not believe on the available evidence that Ms Cheyne or the ACT government is acting on any grand plan to change the ACT’s nation-worst standards on housing the homeless or those for whom life is a perpetual struggle.

We think this even though housing as a human right has now been written into law by the most “progressive” government in Australia. What a hypocritical attempt to justify the unjustifiable. 

However, Canberrans walking past homeless people in the street can at least now feel comfortable that they (the homeless) are just exercising their choice and that this has nothing to do with our policies, priorities and services.

Blaming the homeless when the government has cut funding for services is disingenuous as well as cruel. At least rangers moving the homeless showed more empathy when one of them reportedly said quite eloquently that they feel like an a#$%*@e.

Jon Stanhope is a former chief minister of the ACT and Dr Khalid Ahmed a former senior ACT Treasury official.