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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 14 Hansard (11 December) . . Page.. 4978 ..

MS TUCKER (continuing):

with recommendations either for or against such a centre as soon as possible. Given the Assembly's sitting pattern, the committee had effectively two weeks to undertake this inquiry - an impossible task. An inquiry as important as this one needs time - time to advertise and call for submissions; time to visit the current early intervention services in the ACT; time to visit the Stimulus Early Intervention Centre in South Windsor, New South Wales; time to hold public hearings; and time to consider any evidence. Mr Temporary Deputy Speaker, that time was simply not available.

The committee did seek information from the Government on what it had done. As members may recall, when this issue was debated in the Assembly on 12 November, Mr Stefaniak told the Assembly that his department had conducted a study. According to Mr Stefaniak's correspondence of 25 November 1997, that study involved the Minister and Ms Jill Farrelly meeting with Mr Kevin Rozzoli, MP, on 17 June 1996 to discuss the proposal; and the manager of the Child Health and Development Service speaking at length with the president of the Stimulus Early Intervention Centre at South Windsor, New South Wales, and reviewing a promotional video. Mr Stefaniak also provided the committee with copies of correspondence between the Stimulus Early Intervention Centre and himself, and copies of the constitution, the corporate plan and policies of the Stimulus Early Intervention Centre. However, the information provided to the committee offers no analysis of the feasibility of establishing such a centre in the ACT. Furthermore, in his letter to the committee, Mr Stefaniak reported:

A team of early intervention staff will arrange a visit to the
Stimulus Centre in South Windsor in early December to assess the program.

It seems from this that Mr Stefaniak's department is still doing work on the matter.

Mr Speaker, the committee was disappointed with the information it received from the Minister. That information indicates that any study that was undertaken was very superficial. Maybe once the team of early intervention staff has visited the program at South Windsor this month the Minister will then be in a position to provide a more comprehensive analysis. The committee calls on the Minister responsible for these matters in the Fourth Assembly to table in the Assembly a full and comprehensive report on the feasibility of the establishment of an early intervention centre in the ACT modelled on the Stimulus Early Intervention Centre.

MS REILLY: I seek leave to make a statement, Mr Speaker.

Leave granted.

MS REILLY: As I put up the original motion to undertake a feasibility study into the Stimulus Early Intervention Centre at Windsor, I want to add to what Ms Tucker has said. When I first put the proposal the immediate response from the Government was that this was a criticism. In fact, I was not criticising the current system in the ACT at all.

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