Michael Keenan (Stirling, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Treasurer) Share this | Hansard source

Yes, refurbishing toilets. There are literally hundreds of things that this program has done within my electorate, let alone in other electorates such as that of the member for Mallee and other members. Government members of course will know how successful this program has been, yet I have not heard a peep out of any of them when talking to the appropriations bills about the damage that cutting this program is doing.

Another very successful program that has done a lot of good within my electorate is the Community Water Grants program. Money was allocated under this program to Our Lady of Lourdes School, Deanmore Primary School, St Kieran Catholic School and Glendale Primary School. They received grants to fund measures to save water within their own local communities and they have done it very successfully. I commend them for what they have done. Extraordinarily, no other local schools or community organisations will be able to do the same thing, because this program has been summarily scrapped.

Finally, there is the National Community Crime Prevention program—a program which is very dear to my heart. This program funded things such as CCTV at a local shopping centre in my electorate that is, quite frankly, suffering a plague of crime. The small businesses at the Nollamara shopping centre can no longer get insurance because their businesses are so readily graffitied and vandalised. So we came in, the Howard government, and said, ‘This is a problem. We’ll address this problem by putting CCTV at the shopping centre.’ That CCTV has been erected by the local council. Scrapping this program is just another example of the short-sighted measures that are taken in this ill-considered and diabolically bad budget. (Time expired)

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