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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2004 Week 06 Hansard (Tuesday, 22 June 2004) . . Page.. 2283 ..

organisation. That means not only ensuring that it is not being asked to find productivity savings, but also that its funding and abilities are supported by this government.

There was some discussion about how issues that spanned portfolio area were actually being addressed. Mrs Dunne has already highlighted concerns raised in relation to childhood obesity, where there are three different programs from three different departments targeted at this area. Also, there are issues in relation to students with disabilities and the relationship between the Department of Education and Training and Therapy ACT in the disability area. Concerns were raised in relation to aged care, especially the provision of new aged care places in terms of what was happening through planning and what was happening in the Chief Minister’s Department.

Concerns were raised about the child and family centres which are being looked after by the Chief Minister’s Department and which are a key part of the social plan put down by the government. The chief executive of the Chief Minister’s Department could not explain how these child and family centres were going to relate to other centres, specifically family centres, that have been established in the same areas. There appears to be inadequate communication between and across departments about how new initiatives are going to be implemented and how they relate to ongoing programs. That is something that needs to be addressed so that we are getting efficiency but also the best that we can for the limited resources that we have, that we are not doubling up.

We discussed at length the Territory as parent report. I would like to note that I thought it was particularly relevant to the budget, because we were told that we would be seeing amendments to the 2004-05 appropriation bill as a result of the Territory as parent report. The estimates committee was not provided with a copy of those amendments, the Assembly still has not seen those amendments, and there will be no scrutiny of those amendments. I think that is quite disappointing. I would have liked the estimates committee to have been able to examine the figures being put forward there.

To the extent that we did discuss the implementation of the Territory as parent recommendations, the committee agreed that we cannot finalise what it is that we are going to do in relation to the Territory as parent report because the report itself has not yet been completed. We are still waiting for the audit and case review, which the commissioner has noted is a report on the core business of the Child Protection Agency. It is one that I would think would be key to helping the government, the Assembly and the community decide how to move forward in relation to child protection services in the territory.

The committee recognises that immediate action is needed to address the primary concerns raised by the Territory as parent report. However, there is also a need to ensure that long-term solutions actually address the major problems at hand, that we will not rush in to fix a problem and end up making the problem worse. I hope that we will see that amendment as soon as possible, that we will see the audit and case review as soon as possible, and that we will have time to consider them both fully before being asked to vote on the appropriation bill.

There was also some discussion about the women’s budget statement. Serious concerns were raised that the women’s budget statement was quite subjective in that it listed almost all of the initiatives included in the budget as benefiting women. That almost left

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