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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2002 Week 8 Hansard (26 June) . . Page.. 2260 ..

MR CORBELL: I am pleased to hear that, Mr Speaker. Let me just draw members' attention to one other very important investigation. Mr Pratt has also described as a "bloody nuisance" a review of school counselling activity in the ACT. This review is a specific response to a recommendation of the standing committee report on students at risk of not achieving satisfactory outcomes. So it seems to me that here we have an Assembly report specifically recommending that we need to look closer at counselling services for students at risk of not achieving satisfactory outcomes-and Mr Pratt thinks it's a "bloody nuisance". Perhaps that is why they are sitting on that side of the house and we are sitting on this side of the house-if their approach to all recommendations of committee inquiries, particularly committee inquiries into such important issues as young people at risk of not achieving satisfactory outcomes, is that it is a "bloody nuisance".

I am very happy to be conducting the reviews, because we are responding directly to very important recommendations made by a committee of this place-something, by the way, which the previous government just failed to respond to at all. They did not even bother to respond to the report on students at risk. They had it for nearly a year and just weren't even interested in responding to perhaps one of the most significant inquiries into young people at risk in our community.

Mr Quinlan: Most students are a bloody nuisance as well!

MR CORBELL: Indeed. Apparently, according to the Liberals, young people at risk are a bloody nuisance, too. Young people at risk clearly are a bloody nuisance for Mr Pratt. We treat our responsibilities seriously, and these investigations and reviews will make sure that the government's response is well informed, based on evidence and responds to the very clear need that is emerging through committee reports and a range of other mechanisms.

MS MacDONALD: I have a supplementary question. Does the government share the view of the Liberal opposition that reviews into the provision of services to young people at risk are a bloody nuisance?

MR CORBELL: Clearly we don't share that view, but I am pleased to hear that the Liberals confirm that is their view of services for young people at risk-that they're all just a bloody nuisance. But this government is investing more in education in the ACT than any government since self-government. That is the record of this Labor government to date.

We believe it is absolutely appropriate to respond in an informed and evidence-based manner to the issues facing our education sector, both in government and non-government schools. Mr Pratt comes out, in his very detailed and well-considered way in response to this budget, and just says, "What a bloody nuisance". I think the education community deserves more from this shadow minister-and this government is delivering more than those opposite ever did.

Land release

MRS DUNNE: Mr Speaker, my question is to the Chief Minister. Chief Minister, are you aware of concerns expressed by the building industry that it is suffering from the peaks-and-troughs effect of uncertainty over the ACT land release program and that new

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