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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2001 Week 8 Hansard (8 August) . . Page.. 2535 ..

MR WOOD (continuing):

purchasing goods and services, personal care, education, voluntary work and community participation, socialising and active and passive leisure.

I will finish with this quote:

As a measure of its value as a social indicator, the time use survey has now been included as a core survey in the ABS social surveys program, with subsequent surveys to be conducted every five years from 1997.

That is what the ABS said about it. That is pretty important stuff; yet it is now a thing of the past, it does not apply any longer, so all the policy development that should flow from this information is being impaired. I have had a personal experience in this regard. Last night I had extensive discussions with my dear wife as she sought to answer the census questions and found, as a person who does a little bit of paid employment and a lot of voluntary work, that it was quite impossible for her to answer some of those questions. The opportunity just was not there; she could not do it. Even having another couple of questions would have been of enormous assistance to her, and to me as I tried to help and advise, in getting that survey done.

There is a requirement for more effective responses to the needs. There were extensive questions last night about transport. I was asked about the address of this building. I could not give a street number for the Assembly; I simply indicated that it was in London Circuit. Extensive data was sought on how you travel and where you go, but there was nothing there on what might well be half the nation's economic activity in terms of unpaid work. That has been downgraded from a comprehensive five-year collection to a collection maybe every 12 years or so.

As a result of this lack of data collection, we will have inadequate information on support services for the elderly, inadequate information on the needs of people with a disability and their carers and no information in the detail we want on who does work in the home or how flexible work practices apply, and we will find it much more difficult to develop policies on the roles of women and a whole range of other issues. In an era of pretty rapid change in work practices and practices around the home, we will be well behind the times when any data is collected. The ABS says that it will continue to use time use surveys, but has given no commitment as to timing, thoroughness or just what it will do. Tentatively, the next one has been programmed, I understand, for 2005, but there is no guarantee of that occurring at this stage.

The period of having regular thorough reviews is over. In lieu, we are getting long delayed and uncertain data. This motion simply asks the Chief Minister to notify the federal government of the Assembly's views.

Mr Humphries: You do not, actually.

MR WOOD: We have done so before in other circumstances, Mr Humphries, sometimes controversial circumstances, as for our relationship with a sister city in France. We have done this sort of thing before; we have simply expressed an opinion to the federal government. I think that that is a reasonable stance to take. This motion is a reasonable and sensible one. I believe that it is one that, in all the circumstances, should be supported.

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