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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2002 Week 6 Hansard (15 May) . . Page.. 1671 ..

MS TUCKER (continuing):

value certain types of families, and we need to be very aware of that. Poverty has to be related to this discussion. Any real commitment to family from the federal government or the ACT government has to be about looking at social policy to ensure social rights for people, no matter what form of family they are in.

MRS DUNNE (5.32): Mr Speaker, what can you say about families? You cannot live with them and you cannot live without them. I wish I had the audacity to quote the former Prime Minister in the way Mrs Cross did. I would never have used that expression.

This is the International Day of Families, and everyone has stood to say how important families are. I hope that by standing here today and saying how important families are we impress upon the government the importance of serving the families of Canberra well when it comes to drafting the budget.

As I said in my maiden speech, I believe that the family is the prism through which we should view society in our policy formulation. Mr Corbell waxed lyrical about the great initiatives of his department, the initiatives to come and his commitment to keep some programs. Most of those programs were implemented by the former government, many under the social capital program.

I talk a lot about social capital. Intact families, functioning families, are the glue of our society. When we talk about social capital, they are the high point-an even higher point than all the Canberrans turning up to rugby matches in their Brumbies caps. Families are the base, the core, the foundation of what makes social capital.

We have talked here today about the importance of helping families function well. We have also talked about the obverse-the families that do not function well and the important influence that the way in which your family functions has on children and how they grow up.

I would like to reinforce what Ms Tucker said about the importance of foster care. The increasing importance of foster care is a symptom of the extent to which we do not have functioning families. If we had functioning families, for the most part we would not need foster care and we would not need to call on the sterling services of all those people who do what most of us would not dare do or even dream of doing-taking on children who have been greatly traumatised and have great behavioural problems and helping them sort out their lives.

I echo what Mr Corbell said about early intervention. Early intervention is the key. One of the initiatives the former Liberal government took to the election and one which I am so sad that we will not have the opportunity to implement-if Mr Corbell would like to take it on, I would be ever so grateful-was the program for young mothers at risk.

The program was based on longstanding research and initiative in the United States, where young mothers at risk were identified before they had their children. Women who were pregnant and alone or perhaps did not a very good relationship were singled out and visited from about six months before the birth of their baby through until the baby was two to three years old. Nineteen to 20 years after that research, there was still great

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