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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2002 Week 2 Hansard (19 February) . . Page.. 347 ..

MR PRATT (continuing):

families appeared to be paramount. Why was it that by December, by which time you were in government, the interests of the families were secondary to the interests of the officials referred to in the report?

MR STANHOPE: I thank Mr Pratt for continuing to develop this thesis. I did not consider that and I still do not think so. There were a range of propositions advanced in your question and a range of assumptions around what I did in June and what has happened since the report was presented to me on 18 December.

I do not resile from my call to the then Chief Minister to table the interim report. He, of course, had not been subjected to legal action. His situation was a little bit different. Indeed, I propose to table today the interim report that the then Chief Minister did not table last June. You will also be getting the interim report today, Mr Pratt. Despite the fact that the previous Chief Minister had it for months on end and refused to release it, I am now able to advise you that I will be releasing the interim report as well today, the one that Mr Humphries refused to release and the one that I called for him to release. Mr Pratt, I am doing today what your leader refused to do.

Not only are the interests of the families paramount, but also the interests of the clients that the disability program and Disability Services are there to serve are paramount. I think we all accept that. We all need to focus on that and not be distracted, and this is a real distraction. We need to focus on what this report is all about. The Gallop report, if you go back to the terms of reference, is all about the delivery of services to people within this community with a disability, the most vulnerable people within our community.

The first three questions we have had from the Liberal Party in relation to this fundamental issue-namely, how to ensure that we deliver the best possible services to people in our community-have been a distraction. The first three questions were designed to throw us off the fundamental issue of what we are going to do about the findings of the Gallop report and what we are going to do about ensuring the delivery of the best possible services to these most vulnerable members of our community.

What have the Liberal Party concentrated on? They have concentrated on a sideshow. Not a single question has been asked about the fundamental issue of people with a disability. It is about the sideshow; it is all about the distraction; it is all about playing politics: it is not about the fundamental issue.

Mr Pratt: I take a point of order, Mr Speaker. I am trying to find out why the interests of the public servants were paramount over the interests of the parliament and I am not getting an answer.

MR SPEAKER: That is hardly a point of order, Mr Pratt. You have asked a question and the Chief Minister is answering the question.

Mr Pratt: He is straying from the question, Mr Speaker, with due respect.

MR SPEAKER: The difficulty we have always had in this place is that one side cannot put words in the mouth of the other side. The question has been asked and you will have to let the Chief Minister answer it to the fullest.

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