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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1998 Week 6 Hansard (3 September) . . Page.. 1932 ..

MS TUCKER (continuing):

Integrating children with behavioural problems, special needs or disabilities into our education system is another area of grave concern that has come up over and over again. It is an issue across the community, not just in schools, because we no longer feel it appropriate to have people institutionalised. If support is not available when we mainstream, or put children or adults or whoever into the community, then we are very negligent in how we support these people. In the schools, I know it is an issue. I know that in some situations principals have to toilet people who have a disability, who are not able to do it by themselves. There is a serious lack of resources in this area. It is something I hope I will be able to look at in the Education Committee. I am constantly being contacted in my office on these particular issues.

The behavioural issues, as always, are not getting enough support. That came up in the preschool inquiry too. I cannot pre-empt what the committee will say on that issue, but we certainly did get a number of submissions that disagreed with the Auditor-General's comment that special needs children and teachers in that sector were being adequately supported.

I would like to talk about youth, as Mr Corbell did. This is also not just about the ACT Government. This is about the Federal Government and what they are doing in this area. It links to the discussion we had before on the Justice and Community Safety Unit of the appropriations. What is happening across Australia through Federal cuts and lack of local support is that youth are generally falling off the agenda, particularly youth who are vulnerable. They are falling off the agenda in family services. They are falling off the agenda in the legal system. They are falling off the agenda in employment opportunities. They are falling off the agenda in educational opportunities. Youth centres are not being adequately resourced, and all sorts of strange things are happening to how they are funded. Refuges are still underresourced. (Extension of time granted) The great rhetoric of the Liberals is that what they put into practice through their policies is about choice, but the important factor here is that it is choice only for those who can afford to pay.

This appropriation unit also covers community services. I was at the ACTCOSS conference briefly yesterday. Talking to some people there, I know the community sector is very concerned about how they are going to fare, what is happening with the SACS award and what is happening with the purchaser-provider model being imposed on them. I believe that once again, through these policies, we are going to see the vulnerable people in our community suffer. The people who care for them are not respected for their work and they will burn out. It has happened in some situations already, and society as a whole will definitely suffer as a result of that.

Mr Rugendyke said that he is interested in responsibility and looking at the operational debt. He said that he supports this Government because that is where they are responsible. Accrual accounting is very simple in its concept, but it does not give a sophisticated picture of the real debt that we are accruing. Because we focus so much at the moment on the budget bottom line, with an obsession about the operational debt, we are accruing a massive debt in the long term. That is because when we continue to emphasise short-term economics and financial responsibility we are losing in the long term, not only socially but financially as well.

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