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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1998 Week 6 Hansard (3 September) . . Page.. 1941 ..

MR STEFANIAK (continuing):

Without going through the debate, which we have had ad nauseam, I did have a look at the transcript. It was very interesting to see what the community said when they appeared before the Estimates Committee. There are some interesting points here in relation to the youth centres because there has been criticism about one-year contracts for Civic and Woden. It is not defunding; it is not reducing funding; it is simply a one-year contract as opposed to a three-year contract, for reasons that have already been given in terms of a different service which we are looking at at both those very important youth centres. I was interested to see appearing before the committee Mr Paul Attenborough and Mr Garth Edwards from the Civic Youth Centre. On page 1175 of the transcript of 5 August 1998, the chair welcomed both of those gentlemen and said:

Can I just ask you to address one issue in your address to the Committee, that is, your understanding about negotiations on the three year contract. We are led to understand that you were of the belief that it was a three year contract all the way through and I would like to hear comments in respect of that in particular.

Mr Edwards responded:

In relation to the funding, I can see why it has been done and I understand the reasoning behind it. We are here to put to the Committee that we are prepared to move forward in relation to certain things that are about to take place. We will talk with different organisations and other services groups. Our main area to this Committee is to table if we could a handout that was made and a brief overview of what we actually do at the Civic Youth Centre. The funding issue I think we will live with and we will deal with as it comes up further ...

Then there were a number of other questions. Mr Edwards and his colleague went into quite a wide range of various services that they provide, such as increased hours for youth and the fact that they are there effectively to look after what the youth want. I might refer to that quote because it is particularly helpful. They give out 13,000 meals and provide all sorts of services. Mr Corbell, at page 1180, asked Mr Edwards:

Can I ask one last thing about - getting back to the one year versus three year contract issue, the Government has indicated, both here in Estimates and in the Assembly earlier this year, that the reason for the offer of one year is, there was a review being undertaken of Youth Services provided by your centre, in your area, covered by your centre and also in Woden.

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