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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1999 Week 11 Hansard (21 October) . . Page.. 3500 ..

MR STEFANIAK (continuing):

Twelve months may well be a short period of time. Quite clearly, some experts in our community, including the magistrates, including the Chief Magistrate, who was had extensive experience in the children's jurisdiction, are very much in favour of this.

Mr Wood: Is this such a problem?

MR STEFANIAK: Not if people are sensible. I just leave that with members. We have all these people looking at this and the Minister has the ability to do certain things. Do we need an extra impost on the department to do this, when you have all these other agencies doing this almost on a weekly basis? I do not think is necessary, but I can count. I will support Mr Osborne's amendment. It is preferable to the revised amendment as moved by Ms Tucker.

MR SPEAKER: Mr Osborne, would you like to move your amendment?

MR OSBORNE (5.34): I seek leave to move the amendment circulated in my name.

Leave granted.

MR OSBORNE: I move:

MR SPEAKER: You may speak to your amendment if you wish.

MR OSBORNE: I have said enough, Mr Speaker.

MS TUCKER (5.35): I need to correct something Mr Stefaniak said. He totally misrepresented what I said when he said that I had said that I did not trust the Chief Magistrate. I did not say that. I said that I did not trust the Government when they tell me everything is okay. I have just read out statistics to show that they are failing.

Mr Stefaniak: I did not say you did not trust him. I asked it as a question.

MS TUCKER: He asked it as a question. I am not calling into question the integrity of the Chief Magistrate. I would like to make it clear that if there were no children in these circumstances a review would not be necessary, because there would be nothing to review. That seems pretty obvious. I thank members for their support. I think it is an important mechanism of accountability, and I look forward to working with the Government in ensuring that these sorts of initiatives provide good outcomes right across the sector.

Amendment (Mr Osborne's ) agreed to.

Proposed new clause, as amended, agreed to.

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