Page 2796 - Week 10 - Wednesday, 14 August 1991
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The report that Mr Humphries referred to cannot be read in isolation from the facts. The issue for this Government is to provide a quality mix of beds for the people of the ACT. That will include, in the first place, an affordable and accessible public hospital system. This Government is going to attack the mess of public hospital waiting lists as quickly as is possible, and we are going to try to clean up the mess that was left to us by the Alliance Government in that respect.
Domestic Violence
MS MAHER: Mr Speaker, my question is directed to the Chief Minister. In a letter I have received from you, Chief Minister, you state that you are not going to proceed with the domestic violence committee which the Alliance Government was in the process of establishing. You also state that you feel sure that the same high level of work can now be done in different ways. I acknowledge the fact that the National Committee on Violence against Women and the ACT Women's Consultative Council are both doing some work on it; but, considering that one of the main reasons for forming that consultative committee was to improve the coordination between agencies, both government and non-government, in the ACT, and not nationally, can the Chief Minister inform the Assembly how she intends to improve the coordination and information sharing of those agencies without the consultative council and those agencies actually meeting?
MS FOLLETT: I thank Ms Maher for that question, which is on a very important subject. I do not think there could be an issue that is more important to this Assembly or, indeed, to our community than the safety of women and children and the protection of them from violence. Mr Speaker, Ms Maher has asked me specifically about the coordination and improving the coordination between agencies on issues related to domestic violence, and that is indeed a very important question. I hope to achieve that coordination and improved coordination largely through the work of the Women's Consultative Council, a body that has served both my own Government and Mr Kaine's Government formerly and has done a considerable amount of work on domestic violence.
Mr Collaery: You are joking.
MS FOLLETT: Mr Collaery is interjecting on some grounds, Mr Speaker. I am unaware of what they are. The fact is that the Women's Consultative Council reports to the Chief Minister, to me, and it has a whole-of-portfolio brief. There is no doubt about that.
Mr Collaery: But it does not include many of those agencies from the other body.
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