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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 5 Hansard (13 May) . . Page.. 1322 ..

MR HIRD (continuing):

In total, we have had a review undertaken by the department which included interviews with students, past students, parents and the school board; an examination by the Legislative Assembly Standing Committee on Social Policy, of which I was a member; and now a report by the Ombudsman, which Ms Tucker referred to. In addition, there has been action in the Supreme Court of the ACT, and at present a further internal review is being conducted into matters arising out of the Supreme Court action.

Mr Speaker, SWOW was a mess. This Government did something about it, and the result of our action in opening an alternative program at Dickson College has proven to be an outstanding success, with marked improvements in enrolments and student satisfaction and better resources for all. For members on the other side to criticise the Minister and this Government for taking steps that no-one else previously had been prepared to take in the interests of the welfare of the vulnerable young students in our community is, I believe, hypocritical and opportunist. The Government, through the Minister for Education, has the responsibility at law of accountability for each student undertaking studies within the ACT education system. I go to the very heart of the whole problem, the duty of care. I believe it is hypocritical and opportunist to bring this up at this time when the Minister is doing the best he can and doing a fine job in the education portfolio in difficult times. I will not be supporting the censure motion.

MR MOORE (5.05): The Minister has only in the last few minutes tabled a series of extracts from affidavits that were sworn or affirmed for use in the ACT Supreme Court. I note some concern in the chamber at the moment about how these might be used. They may well wind up identifying people, even though it was clearly not the Minister's intention that that be the case. They are important to the debate because they put in context the background of what the Minister was working with. Had I been Minister at the time and been presented with this kind of information, I would have said, "That school closes tomorrow". I would have come into this chamber and people would have said, "You did not consult at all. You closed a school". There comes a point when it is simply time to take appropriate action.

If I have any criticism of the Minister and the way he handled the issue in the first place, it is that when he received information from his department of the concerns they had about the operation of this school he took a long time to respond. Of course, I am speaking with the wisdom of hindsight and have in front of me sworn affidavits. At that time I presume the Minister did not have such affidavits in front of him, but he did know of many of the quite appalling situations mentioned in these affidavits. The issues were raised with me by a number of people once this matter had become public.

The issue comes down to consultation. The Social Policy Committee, in its report, identified inadequacy in the consultation process. Indeed, the Ombudsman repeated a series of problems. Although the Ombudsman's report sought to distance itself from the Social Policy Committee, it has a clear series of very close parallels. I suppose one of the things that concern me at the moment is that we seem to be getting a community attitude that the only good consultation is consultation that results in having the view of whoever seeks to be consulted taken on board and complied with completely. Sometimes there is going to be consultation that does not have that result. On many occasions in this

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