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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2000 Week 4 Hansard (28 March) . . Page.. 918 ..

MS TUCKER (continuing):

was a recommendation of the committee in its report on annual reports which Mr Hird did not dissent from. This recommendation is exactly the same, but he has dissented from it this time for some reason.

The next recommendation is that the Government conduct an analysis of the cost and work load increases experienced by the sector providing services related to care and protection. This recommendation came out of the evidence to the committee about the pressures on the sector. From sitting down and listening to the people talking to the committee about the services they are providing or receiving and from reading the submissions, you realise that in this area of government work you are dealing with the people in our society who are most vulnerable and at risk. For that reason, it is particularly important that a caring government take the trouble of doing a full analysis of the reality for people working in the sector as well as the needs of the sector, present and future.

We have also made a comment which could have some implications for the funding of our early intervention services because we have seen an increase in demand for those services. We talk at some length about student welfare in schools. Once again, all of that has come out in previous inquiries of the Assembly and we are conducting an inquiry at the moment into kids at risk of not completing their education. It is a subject with which we are all very familiar and we would like to see the Government take greater interest in it.

The P&C council's submission to the committee is of importance and interest. The committee has not taken a strong position on it one way or the other. That is why, once again, Mr Hird's dissenting report is quite hard to understand. It is as if he has not read the report. He is accusing us of taking a pro-P&C line. We agree with the P&C council that there are some questions around the effectiveness of benchmarking as a measure of success for any particular area. There are concerns about there being a race to the bottom and so on. The committee did not take a position on whether the Government has actually maintained the funding of education in real terms because it had not seen the report of the independent auditor - a copy of which came to my office on, I think, Saturday - by the time it finished its report. We have not taken a strong position on that. We had to stand back and wait until we had the results of the independent audit. I am not clear what upset Mr Hird so much because, really, we have said very little about that. I think that that covers Mr Hird's dissenting report pretty well.

We have made a specific recommendation about the Government looking at the number of homeless students. The P&C council made reference in its submission to the number of homeless children in our school system. When the Government was asked for further information on that it said, basically, that it was not the Government's business as schools manage that. That is totally unacceptable for a government that claims to be caring. It is a good example of what happens when you do not have a concentrated focus from government on what is the reality for some of the students and teachers in our schools and how other departments can be brought in to address the needs. That is where the intersectoral work would come in. The homelessness issue is a very good example of where the Government has adopted a hands-off approach, saying that it is not the Government's responsibility because school-based management is in place. That is quite unacceptable. That is why we have made a specific recommendation on that.

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