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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 7 Hansard (24 June) . . Page.. 1944 ..

MR WHITECROSS (continuing):

way they address jobs, whether we are talking about the way they address strategic planning in the Territory, it is all short term; it is all just getting us to the end of next week. That is not a good enough basis on which to govern. They have not earned the right to govern, and I think they will find in February next year that the ACT community is not too happy with the way they have been conducting themselves.

MS TUCKER (12.08): I would like to speak about the Government's response to the Estimates Committee report. Overall, it was a disappointing response to the Estimates Committee. Although only one recommendation was rejected outright, I note that many of the "agreed in principle" positions may as well be outright rejections. Many of the comments are quite offhand and demonstrate a lack of understanding about where the committee was coming from, and I support Mr Whitecross's comments on that.

Mrs Carnell dealt with the issue of a domestic violence project coordinator in her response to the Assembly. I do not think the Government has come up with an adequate response to this issue. They still seem to think a council will be able to do this job without the backup of an adequately resourced coordinator position or positions. A coordinator position would make the work of this council much more effective, as well as assisting with the very important task of case tracking. It is also very disappointing that we are possibly going to miss out on opportunities to secure Commonwealth Government funding because of the Government's poor handling of this issue. The domestic violence intervention project, as recommended by the Community Law Reform Committee, would provide the basis for a very innovative and forward-looking model. However, I am still working with the Government on this issue and will continue to negotiate to see whether we can reach an outcome that will be appropriate, that is, that we end up with this position in place. I am sure other members of the committee will be disappointed with the Government's response, and I hope we can work together to reverse this decision.

As with most Government responses, the heading "Agreed" is often misleading. "Agreed in principle" is often another way of saying that this will be on the backburner or an excuse to explain what the Government is doing instead of implementing the particular recommendation. For example, the response in relation to green power was "agreed in principle". In practice, I do not think the Government has shifted ground very much at all on this matter, but I can assure them we will be consistent in trying to persuade them. A bit of obsessiveness or determination, as Mr Moore put it so eloquently on the radio this week, never goes astray.

In relation to privacy, the response is also a little puzzling. Although the Government has agreed to this recommendation, in practice they have said that they will not do anything unless it is a national scheme. The whole point of my questioning was on the basis that the Commonwealth Government has announced that they will not do anything and therefore we need to look at what other jurisdictions are doing and also what the Privacy Commissioner is doing. It may well be that a de facto national scheme could be introduced through the implementation of a code developed, by the Privacy Commissioner, into State or Territory legislation.

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