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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1999 Week 11 Hansard (19 October) . . Page.. 3241 ..

MS TUCKER (continuing):

I am also pleased to see that the Government will ensure that there is accountability for funds spent. This is particularly important in the current context of purchaser-provider models for government services. We do need to know the circumstances of personal connections which are common in a city of this size and to ensure that external audits keep us in touch with what actually has happened. This is obviously important for everybody, including the personnel involved in these sorts of areas.

I also hope that this means that staff employed will be given strong and wide leadership on matters of conflict of interest. Dr Glenn Rosendahl's musings on the curious case of Alison Theobold in the Canberra Times, page C4 of 2 October 1999, certainly gave rise to concern about so-called soft tendering and how it is that the staff concerned, who gave special treatment to clients in their care, were not counselled against such actions by their supervisors. Where is the management direction that will ensure that the approach works, and where is the ministerial oversight and guidance from the Minister?

I am pleased that the Government will ensure that activities that offer new solutions are considered. I hope that this will mean we do not hear any more complaints about the alcohol and drug program management having knee-jerk reactions against innovative ways of working with clients, such as taking clients out of the institutional setting of the health building and running relapse groups in cafes, taking clients out on walks, and instilling new habits in a supportive setting. I hope that full consideration will be given also to issues such as meditation techniques, which have been found to be very effective in research into recidivism and which have met with great success as a tool for people to overcome drug and other problems. I hope that the implementation of this element of the strategy will give courage and leadership to those responsible for welcoming initiatives from the workers in the program as well.

The Greens agree that attention must be paid to coordination, collaboration and consultation. Once again I have to raise how the overhaul of the alcohol and drug program occurred in light of these commitments to coordination, collaboration and consultation. We have certainly been given the impression that the partnership approach was not adequate.

The problems that we have been hearing from the community were more to do with management of the programs that were already in place and working well rather than with any real problems with the student counsellor system as it existed. We have received, as I know other members of the Assembly have received, letters from clients of the program which have expressed these sorts of concerns.

The recent evaluation and restructure contracted from KPMG Consultants at a cost of $486,000 did not investigate the management, did not investigate any personality issues raised by the community and did not use evaluation up to assess from the workers' point of view what could be done to improve the service. I hope that the Government will now apply its commitment to evaluate its programs fully and will investigate the management of community services before leaping into new management fads for

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