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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2004 Week 02 Hansard (Wednesday, 3 March 2004) . . Page.. 622 ..

bit of time on a Wednesday morning in order to push out issues that crossbenchers and the opposition want to raise.

There is a serious lack of timeframes and targets. There are four targets and timeframes at the very back of the document, and they all seem to want to be judged by about 2013. It is a long time away. Almost 10 years from now this will be a forgotten document. I think this shows the lack of dedication to building up the city.

Last year I attended the national health summit at which one of the presenters said that you could track the change in people’s health and education and other areas of social interest in 12 to 18 months. He said that targets should be set for early intervention that will reap not only a health reward but a long-term economic reward to the community; that within about 12 to 18 months you should be able to be seeing the trend appear if you set yourself targets. What the government is saying by setting just four targets with such long timeframes is that they are unwilling to try, they do not have the answers, or they do not have the commitment to achieve these targets.

The four targets set are: reduce long-term unemployment by 2013; decrease income inequality by 2013; reduce homelessness as close as possible to zero by 2013; and increase to 70 per cent the proportion of adults with post-school qualifications—this target does not seem to have a date. So if we are serious, these targets should be implemented with timeframes of two, four, six, eight and 10 years. Yes, you need a long-term target eventually but you should have measurable steps along the way, and that does not appear in this plan.

It is interesting to note what the government says, for instance, about actions 5.3, 5.6 and 5.7 on pages 51 and 52. The glossies and the promos talk about inclusion, building up, equity, and everybody getting involved, and yet actions 5.3, 5.6 and 5.7 concentrate on the government school sector. Oddly enough, I cannot see a mention at all in this document of the non-government sector, and I think that is a shame. It is a shame when, according to a document the P&C gave me the other day, 46.5 per cent of year 7 to 10 students in our high schools are now in non-government schools. Yet, those 46.5 per cent of students do not get a mention in this document. So much for inclusion, so much for equity.

Action 4.2 at page 45 reads:

The Government will put in place a package of initiatives to promote good health in children and young people, including: Advice on food and nutrition, fitness and health and other measures …

We have had a report from the health committee about this, but there has been no action. Where are the targets? The previous government actually had a tender out that would have tracked the health of young students in our school system. The first action of incoming education minister Corbell was to knock it off. The tender was shut down because we did not want to do it.

Action 4.2 is saying, “We’ll put in place a package of initiatives.” If you do not know what the problem is, how are you going to fix it? And if you want to fix it, why would

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