Page 667 - Week 03 - Wednesday, 20 May 1992
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MS FOLLETT (Chief Minister and Treasurer) (4.04): I want to make one final point on that residual amount of money, which I should have mentioned. The provision that is in the Bill will circumvent the problem of any residual amount returning to Consolidated Revenue. I understand that in Queensland, as Mr De Domenico said, there is a large residual amount. I think that is unlikely to happen in the ACT. The debate in Queensland is on whether that residual amount should return to Consolidated Revenue. I am sure that that is the point of view that Treasury would put most strenuously. There is also the argument in the Queensland case, which is particularly being put by the equivalent of the Housing Trust, that that money ought to be spent on housing. The presence of that clause in the Bill will prevent that kind of debate and will prevent any residual amount automatically returning to Consolidated Revenue.
Mr De Domenico: Unless the Minister wants it to.
MS FOLLETT: Unless the Minister directs that way.
Amendments negatived.
Clause agreed to.
Remainder of Bill, by leave, taken as a whole, and agreed to.
Bill agreed to.
ABORIGINAL DEATHS IN CUSTODY
Ministerial Statement and Papers
Debate resumed from 19 May 1992, on motion by Ms Follett:
That the Assembly takes note of the papers.
MS FOLLETT (Chief Minister and Treasurer) (4.06), in reply: Madam Speaker, if there are no further speakers, I am happy to conclude the debate on this matter. I would like to thank Mr Humphries, Mr Moore and Ms Szuty for their contributions to this debate. I think it has been a constructive debate and I think the evidence of bipartisan support for the response to the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody is a very good start.
I would like, at the outset, Madam Speaker, to make comment on some of the media reports that I saw about Mr Humphries's statement on the Government's response. I think it is fair to say that Mr Humphries may be under a misapprehension in relation to some of those statistics and in relation to the relevance of the royal commission report to the ACT. Madam Speaker, in tabling the ACT's response in the Assembly on 8 April I said quite clearly that there is a lack of accurate data regarding Aboriginal people in the ACT criminal justice system. Indeed, I believe that both Mr Moore and Ms Szuty also referred to that and have referred to the need for better and more accurate data. That is something that my Government is moving to correct. We are committed to getting all of the data that is necessary to overcome the disadvantage and disability currently suffered by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.
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