Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .

Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2004 Week 01 Hansard (Thursday, 12 February 2004) . . Page.. 271 ..

taking anything at all away from women. There are many centres and programs located in Canberra that deal with women’s health, yet there does not appear to be any such centre for men. There are many more women’s shelters, for example, which provide housing for women who are victims of domestic violence, compared to shelters for men. If a victim is a man then he is often placed on a waiting list for what is described as family accommodation. The waiting list can be very long.

Our shelters provide mid to long-term housing for women and children, yet little to nothing for men. There seems to be a distinct lack of crisis services available for fathers going through divorce or separation. The majority of calls—over 50 per cent—received by the Lone Fathers Association relate to marriage breakdowns. These men are looking for support and advice yet, with its limited budget, the centre can do very little to help. Separated and divorced fathers appear to have access to very few services for accommodation, counselling or general support. This is particularly the case where men have suffered domestic violence, need support immediately after separation or have children with nowhere to stay.

Things need to change. Fathers are suffering and they are often silent. They are unwilling to admit that they are having difficulty and need support. Sadly, as statistics show, many believe that the solution is to take their own lives. Clearly, that is not the solution. This Assembly has a responsibility to examine the status of fathers in our society, in our community, in Canberra, to determine in what way they are not being looked after and to determine what we can do to improve their status and their plight. This is our role and our function as legislators. I encourage members to vote with their conscience and support my motion today.

MR HARGREAVES (10.57): Mr Speaker, Mrs Burke raises quite a number of issues and I think quite validly. She has obviously gone to a great deal of trouble to do a lot of research on the issue and I thank her for that information. I think that there are a number of issues that have to be addressed but, before doing that, I will signal that this side of the house will not be supporting the motion. I will give you some reasons for that.

First, the terms of reference are very wide. I agree with you that it is an important matter. I consider these terms of reference to be about the same width as those of the inquiry into the rights, interests and wellbeing of children. In the time frame that has been placed on this motion, it would not be possible, given the workload of this committee, to do this inquiry justice. There is just not enough time for it to happen.

Second, if the reporting date was removed, it is my prediction that this inquiry, quite rightly, would require extensive investigation and extensive discussion and public comment. I understand that a similar motion was put to the South Australian parliament not long ago after quite a lot of investigation, and I suggest that we need to do something of a similar extent.

It is the wrong time of the electoral cycle. The reason I say that is that it would take us a very long time to come to the stage of putting a report to the Assembly. The government then has three months to respond. That would take us past August, and then the Assembly is in caretaker mode. In other words, we would only get halfway through any meaningful result with what Mrs Burke is trying to achieve.

Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .