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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2004 Week 07 Hansard (Tuesday, 29 June 2004) . . Page.. 2859 ..

will give no confidence out there in the community that this government is addressing these issues as it should.

I have said before if you are not going to enforce mandatory reporting of child abuse, why not repeal the legislation calling for it? What is the point of having legislation if you do not enforce it? It appears to me that it is simply a tokenistic approach by this government to say this is a terrible thing, we will put legislation in place to make sure people are aware they could be in trouble, but we will not bother to enforce it. The minister knows that in the recent cases of mandatory reporting of child abuse, as the Territory as Parent report states, eight people failed to mandatorily report. No mandated people in the ACT have been penalised for not reporting suspected child abuse. That is an appalling indictment of the law and of this government. It simply is not satisfactory.

We have had two deaths here. Again, that has been canvassed here. No-one has been charged with the death of child A. Eight mandated persons failed to report their suspicions of her abuse. It is not acceptable, and I urge the government to do something about it. If the government does not want to enforce mandatory reporting, please repeal the legislation. Let the people of the ACT know that we are not really serious about child abuse in this territory and that it is open slather. I do not think anybody in this chamber, or indeed anybody out there in the community, would want us to do such a thing. But by failing to act upon it, the government is endorsing that attitude. I strongly urge the government to address this matter in future. It will certainly come up again when the Territory as Parent report is debated in more detail.

In closing, I comment on the Office of Women. I do not have any great problem about that. However, I notice that the Estimates Committee suggested that something should be done for men as well, and this was apparently not taken up. That is a pity. Only now are we beginning to see the result of the extra attention paid over the years to the needs of women. We are now beginning to see problems being created with men, particularly young men. My colleague Mr Pratt is aware of that in education. Other figures coming out appear to indicate that many young men are more prone to suicide and such like than females. This is something that calls for a balance. I hope that society—and that has to be led by legislatures and by governments—will address this issue and try to bring the pendulum back at least to something I can best call centred, and be even-handed in affirmative action for both sexes.

MRS CROSS (12.02): I will just speak briefly to the $2.5 million the government injected for the multicultural centre. I thought that was a major plus to come out of the budget. I would have liked it to go to a stand-alone building, which would have been far more effective for the multicultural community, but at least the $2.5 million to refurbish offices in the south building dedicated to the multicultural centre is a start. It will provide a benefit to many in the community but I do not think it is going to be as advantageous as it would have been if the government had put that money and perhaps more into a stand-alone centre, however it is a start. It is an indication that the government is somewhat committed to helping Canberra’s vast multicultural community.

I am partly encouraged by that, but I am concerned that the resources of the Office of Multicultural and Indigenous Affairs have been considerably reduced over these past six months. That begs the question that if the government is genuinely committed to multiculturalism and the welfare of the multicultural community why would it have the

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