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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2004 Week 03 Hansard (Wednesday, 10 March 2004) . . Page.. 1022 ..

Mr Arthur of the Phoenix Group, when I spoke to him, said that people are getting more upset daily. I said in my speech—and I am surprised at the response from the government—that perhaps the government could enlighten us on what it has done because, whatever it has done, the message has not got through to some people, and they are the ones I am concerned about.

This is not something we thought up for private members day, Mr Wood. I had a motion on this in August last year; it is mentioned in the Estimates Committee report. We asked the government for a report last August—that we do not appear to have received—the government reported in response to the Estimates Committee in August, and I think all of us have been watching this process. But the dilemma now is that if you make the decision to shut the centre it is impossible to reopen it. As the Phoenix Association has said, for many people the centre is a symbol of the way forward. It is there with the support when they need to fall back on it; it has helped them through to where they are moving on.

The reason we bring this on in this way is that Mrs Dunne attended the meeting on Sunday. In talking to people out there on the ground, they are saying they are concerned. It is recorded then in the article titled “Bushfire victims in the dark”. “We have not been consulted,” say the residents. It is there. Yet, without consultation, the government has announced that the recovery centre will be closed.

If it is a perception—and I take the work you have done, and I acknowledge the work you have done—out there that the work has not been done, that people are not ready and that people are not informed, then sometimes you have to take a step back and reconsider what you have done. That is what I am asking the crossbenchers to consider in their support for Mr Stanhope’s amendment.

Mr Stanhope says we will continue to provide the services in another form. That eventually must happen; we all know that. For us to get to a point where the majority have moved on, this must happen. But, in terms of point 2—and as I said, Ms Tucker mentioned there must have been some failure to consult—if we properly and extensively consult with bushfire survivors and other stakeholders on their future needs and we do not report back until the last sitting day of May and in the interim the centre is closed and the report comes back after the consultation or the public says that they would have preferred the centre to stay open a little bit longer, then there is nothing we can do about it and we have got it wrong. And that would be unfortunate. That is why this motion is illogical.

To actually report back on something that has already happened does not help the survivors of the bushfire. I rang some people today, and I have had some phone calls, and I rang Mr Arthur today, and he said that a lot of people would love to see it continue much longer than 30 June. Much longer. But he did accept that an extension to that time would allow the message to be got out in a better way. I am not being critical of the government; if all the things that the Chief Minister has listed have occurred, that is a good thing. But if, for whatever reason, the message has not got out, then the message has not got out. That is why we have headlines like “Bushfire victims in the dark”. If you read the next couple of paragraphs in the article it then goes on to say:

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