Page 2772 - Week 09 - Thursday, 26 August 1993
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MR DE DOMENICO: No, we do not consult with them. When the Chief Minister stands in this place and waxes lyrical about two or three positive things that surveys say, she should also say what she has done about taking note of what previous householder surveys have said, particularly the most important one, Madam Speaker - that, except for community policing, the majority of householders responding did not indicate a willingness to pay higher rates and charges. Some of them got slugged 60 per cent on top of that anyway. As I said, Madam Speaker, my colleagues in future will be responding to the current householder survey report.
Debate (on motion by Mrs Carnell) adjourned.
FOSTER CARERS
Discussion of Matter of Public Importance
MADAM SPEAKER: I have received a letter from Mr Cornwell proposing that a matter of public importance be submitted to the Assembly for discussion, namely:
The failure of the Follett Labor Government to adequately subsidise foster carers in the ACT.
MR CORNWELL (3.25): Madam Speaker, many Assembly members were advised in June of this year of a decision to close the residential alternatives for teenagers, or RAFT, program conducted by Barnardo's in the ACT, which is currently looking after 12 teenagers. These 12 teenagers are part of a total of 71 currently in foster care by the department and by other private agencies as well as Barnardo's. There are other teenagers in residential care, again including departmental care. They total throughout the ACT 130 persons, on departmental figures.
Essentially, the difference between the two types of care - foster and residential - is that the former is in a family situation, while the latter is more institutionalised and is a group setting. I make no comparison between the two in terms of care and attention. I am sure that both are as good and as loving as can be provided. However, commonsense alone, I suggest, would indicate that on a one to one basis the care that could be provided in a fostering family situation would be more directly personal. This, indeed, is what the then ACT Welfare Branch of the department also thought in 1985, because it approached one agency, namely Barnardo's, to set up a professionally run adolescent fostering program for emotionally disturbed teenagers. Lack of community based placement facilities prompted this approach.
So enthusiastic was the Welfare Branch of the department to obtain support from non-government agencies that it paid $220 per week, rising to $240 a week in 1990, per child, to the carers for the service. However, in 1991, following a review by the same Welfare Branch, the foster payment was reduced by $140 to only $100 per week. Faced with the unpalatable choice of either abandoning the program and the teenagers involved or subsidising the costs, Barnardo's elected to subsidise. In fact, it was very much a Hobson's choice if one had any compassion whatsoever.
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