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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2004 Week 01 Hansard (Thursday, 12 February 2004) . . Page.. 312 ..

by the Office of the Community Advocate, there are some telling comments from the Community Advocate regarding child protection. In the 2002-03 Office of the Community Advocate annual report, Heather McGregor says:

In 2002-2003, despite a statutory obligation to do so, Family Services failed to inform the OCA about any of the reports they received alleging the abuse or neglect of a child or young person for whom they had parental responsibility.

Despite a number of guarantees by Family Services, this issue remains unaddressed and of significant concern to the OCA.

Since the Chief Minister has admitted that he does not read all annual reports, it must be questioned if he has failed in his duty to respond appropriately to concerns that Family Services is not fulfilling its statutory obligations. The Chief Minister should have dealt with these concerns in the government’s submission, signed off by cabinet on 8 October 2002, to a Legislative Assembly inquiry into the rights, interests and wellbeing of children and young people.

It is this committee’s final report, which was instigated on 4 April 2002, that raises even more serious questions about the Stanhope government’s failure to act. The committee report, tabled in the Legislative Assembly in August 2003, stated:

The Committee is extremely concerned at reports Family Services has failed to comply with its obligations under the Act.

Labor MLA John Hargreaves is the chair of this committee. It is difficult to understand why he did not push the minister to ensure that she took note of the report and the serious concern his committee had regarding Family Services’ failure to comply with child abuse reporting obligations, as required by law. I am very sorry, Minister, that you are sitting there on your own now, with no colleagues behind you. Is this not important to your colleagues? I wonder.

It is even more surprising given that the chair of the committee selected 12 recommendations. I quote Mr Hargreaves. Of the total of 41 recommendations made by the committee, he singled out, because it was “standing out above all others”, No 26—amendments to the Children and Young People Act to ensure that children at risk of neglect and abuse are protected. Mr Hargreaves cited that it was one that was “having a major impact on the interests, rights and wellbeing of young people in the ACT”. That is on page 3337 of Hansard for 28 August 2003.

Did Mr Hargreaves discuss the committee report with the minister as soon as it had been tabled? If not, why not, when he deemed this to be of such major concern to him? If he did, why did the minister not do anything about it then? It must be argued that the minister has failed in her duty as a minister. The minister has made repeated comments that the first she knew of any problems regarding child abuse reporting was in December 2003, around the time the government tabled its response to the committee report. Why did she wait until January 2004 to alert the public and this Assembly?

Further, how can this possibly be when the committee’s report found there was a failure to comply with obligations four months earlier, in August 2003? Surely, when the government responds to a committee report, cabinet is required to sign off on those

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