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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2000 Week 3 Hansard (9 March) . . Page.. 731 ..
MS TUCKER (continuing):
That was agreed to by Mr Hird. Recommendation 6 was:
the committee recommends that if the Department ... is unable to negotiate with the Commonwealth adequate funding arrangements to enable the implementations of recommendations 3, 4 and 5 it withdraw from the project.
That was agreed to by Mr Hird. Then we see the dissenting report and it is totally inconsistent with what Mr Hird did in the committee. What we have to ask is: Why? Who wrote the dissenting report? Is this proper process in a parliament? Do we care about the committee system at all, or is it going to be politicised?
The fact that Mr Stefaniak has totally misrepresented the reason for Mr Berry's amendment is also quite concerning because it is clear that Mr Hird was not consistent with the work he did in the committee. The only inference that can be taken from that is that basically there was some other reason for him to put in a different sort of dissenting report. That obviously could only be related to the party to which he belongs, and the Minister of that party and of this Government, and that is what is of concern to us about this action. This is not a good thing to do in a parliament where the community has some faith left, I hope, in our committee system. For that reason I think Mr Berry was perfectly entitled to raise this matter by putting the amendment, although I do understand the reasons why he has withdrawn it and I probably support them too. But we do need to have the discussion in this place.
Mr Stefaniak also keeps pushing this ideology line. It is just like an insult that gets thrown around this place, but we need to unpack it a little bit. What is ideology? As I understand it, people might like to have a different interpretation and put that forward in this discussion. As I understand it, it is about ideals. It is about how you work in this place, representing your party or as an independent and the ideals that you stood on as an elected representative.
This committee report responded to community representations on this issue. The ideals that support the recommendations of this report are ideals about ensuring that young unemployed people do not have further negative experiences through government policies. It was clear from the evidence that the young people would not necessarily have a good experience, and it was likely they would have a negative experience if they were pushed into a place to work where they were not properly supported. It was made quite clear - - -
Mr Stefaniak: It is voluntary.
MS TUCKER
: It is voluntary, Mr Stefaniak says. Okay, if you say work for the dole is voluntary, Mr Stefaniak, I think you have missed something fundamental about the work for the dole scheme. Young people will be put into a work environment that is quite stressful and complicated. That was the evidence that came to our committee. The youth sector talked to this committee. The youth sector represent young people. The
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