Page 2787 - Week 09 - Thursday, 26 August 1993
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The other thing I did not hear members opposite talk about was the role of women in foster families. We are told by this Government, which exudes social justice all the time - and we believe them - that women who choose to stay at home, in this case to look after foster children, should not be treated any differently from women who decide to go to work. That being the case, my colleagues, and Ms Szuty as well, have brought out the fact that over the past two years there has been a 150 per cent decrease in the amount of money given to Barnardo's families for foster care. If people do not believe that, I point out that it has gone from $240 two years ago to $106. Where is the social justice in a decrease of 150 per cent in the payments? There is no social justice in that.
There is another point I did not hear anybody stress - except Ms Szuty, I must admit. What would it cost the Government and the taxpayer to have these children looked after anywhere but in foster care? What about in residential groups? Whilst we know that for one child in a foster home it costs roughly $450 a week, including support workers and administration, it would cost in a residential group $1,200 a week. What we are saying to members opposite is that it is more cost-effective to provide that $240 a week and encourage people to be looked after in foster families at home than to spend $1,200 a week in residential care.
Mr Lamont, had he wanted to, could have given us a diatribe on social justice. But he prefers to mock people who have a real concern, because we are bringing forward in this Assembly not only our point of view but also the point of view of the very people who are at home looking after these children, who are doing the job that otherwise would have to be done by the Government at about three times the cost. That is what this MPI is all about, if Mr Lamont wants to listen. Are we spending our taxpayers' dollars in the most cost-efficient way possible?
Mr Cornwell raised the issue of the $100,000 for the abortion clinic, and he made a very valid point. That is where the priorities of this Government are. The priorities of this Government are not for the real concerns of the community but purely and simply to satisfy some ideological bent of a certain member of the Cabinet, namely, Mr Berry. Not all of them agree with that, by the way. We see on television night after night Mr Connolly talking about it. As far as he is concerned, none of his money is going to be used on an abortion clinic. Then Mr Berry, just like the one-eyed cat peeping at the seafood store, says, "Oh, we will see about that".
We know that Mr Berry wins every time, and that is why that subsidy has gone down from $240 a week to $106 a week - a 150 per cent reduction in the amount of money going to families looking after foster kids in the ACT, from a government that talks in this house over and over again about social justice. As I have said, Mr Keating does not believe in social justice. Mrs Kelly, the Minister for whatever she is, who talks about social justice all the time, imposes a 10c a litre slug on those foster families who need petrol. It seems to me that you are all right if you do not have a car; you are all right if you are not a public servant; you are all right if you do not buy toilet paper and toothpaste and everything else on which wholesale sales tax has gone up; and you are all right if you do not need glasses.
MADAM SPEAKER: The discussion has concluded.
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