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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1999 Week 11 Hansard (21 October) . . Page.. 3499 ..

MR STEFANIAK (continuing):

This is a Bill with a lot of checks and balances in it. People talk about resourcing. Again, I remind them of paragraph 233(2)(d). The court has to be satisfied that the person or administrative unit proposed to provide the therapeutic protection has indicated to the court a willingness and ability to allocate the resources necessary to implement the program. I reiterate what I have said earlier in this debate. Obviously, a responsible government would be looking at this and monitoring the situation as it progressed to see whether any new resources were needed. This Government has had a very good track record in allocating new resources where they are needed by people in care and need. My department has done that, and Mr Moore's department has done that.

On the radio, I mentioned mental health as an area where additional resources have been allocated. We have done that in the area of disabilities. I do not know whether we would ever have enough resources to satisfy Ms Tucker in any area, but we have had a very good track record of allocating resources from within the finite resources of this Government. I do not expect an opposition necessarily to comment favourably on that. Mr Wood probably realises what I mean.

These orders cannot be made without an order of the court. I do have a bit of concern here. Is Ms Tucker saying that she does not trust the magistrates to adequately scrutinise all the applications before them? Once the orders are made, the chief executive is subject to scrutiny too. There are a lot of checks and balances here. The chief executive is subject to scrutiny by the Community Advocate and the Official Visitor - that is not within 12 months or within three years; that is at any time, at short notice - in relation to the provision of therapeutic protection. Neither of those officers is backward in coming forward about any matter of concern, nor should they be, either in any particular case or in relation to system administration.

The Community Advocate is already charged under the Act with statutory responsibility for monitoring the provision of welfare services to children. That amply covers the issue of appropriateness of any therapeutic protection order. However, I think members have already agreed during this debate to give the Official Visitor the power to report to the Minister at any time on any matter. That clearly allows for reports on therapeutic protection not after 12 months but at any time, more frequently than annually, if so minded. The Minister, whoever it is - me or anyone else - has the option of asking the Children's Services Council to report on anything relating to the operation of the Act. This is precisely the type of subject that could be referred to that body too.

We have legislation in place already for a wide range of public authorities to report on their operations over each 12-month period, not just the first one. We have the Official Visitor; we have the Community Advocate; we have the chief executive; we have the Chief Magistrate; we have the courts. There is a whole range of things. Mr Rugendyke is quite right, and so are the people who drafted this Bill. Three years is a more appropriate time because it is feasible.

No-one will be under a therapeutic protection order in the first 12-month period. What will there be to report on? Will people then say, "We do not need it."? I hope people will not play politics with something as serious as this, but that is a distinct possibility.

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