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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2004 Week 07 Hansard (Tuesday, 29 June 2004) . . Page.. 2913 ..

are not so much in the foster care arrangement but when the child goes back to a completely dysfunctional family and some sort of abuse occurs. That was the case of the little girl that you mentioned, Mr Deputy Speaker. It is the case in most of the examples given in the Vardon report.

Again, for Ms Gallagher’s information, situations like that would sometimes be suggested to me as minister, and I caused them to be investigated. Indeed, some court action ensued as a result, occasionally with the final result not being completely to my satisfaction. Those are the situations that need to be investigated; those are the situations where we will continue to have children at risk.

There have been occasions in the past when government officials have not done their duty, have not obeyed the law and have not lived up to their responsibilities, and consequences should flow from that. It is not good enough just to sweep that under the carpet. The government really needs to lift its game because I do not want to see again a situation where two little girls like these—one about two and the other about six in the case you and I are both well aware of, Mr Deputy Speaker—die as a result of these problems. I certainly do not want to see that happen again.

MR SMYTH (Leader of the Opposition) (5.18): Mr Deputy Speaker, the Chief Minister’s Department is an essential department. It has the task of coordinating much activity and providing leadership to all the public service. As well, it overlooks a number of very serious parts of the portfolio—everything from ageing through to women’s issues—and so it is important to scrutinise it appropriately.

Some of what I will say has been covered already. But it is important to note that, for instance, under the women’s grant we finally see the Minister for Women paying attention to her portfolio. There is a single initiative worth $100,000 to improve the status of women in the ACT by supporting women’s groups and research undertaken by the Office of Women. By any stretch of the imagination, that is a very small commitment to women’s issues. After considering all the work that has been done by a select committee of this Assembly and the government response to its recommendations, I think we can say that in this Assembly the government has a severe lack of interest in women’s issues.

I think the most telling aspect of the government’s budget is the fact that this year $1½ million dollars has been allocated for the Community Inclusion Board. If I recall correctly what the Chief Minister said, it was words to the effect of, “They’ll tell us where there is need and what we should spend on it.” Surely it is the fundamental role of government to know what the need is. If they are out there doing their work, what is the purpose of having an advisory body?

I note the shift towards advisory bodies that are now being paid for by the government. When we were in office we were always able to get people to willingly sit on boards, but we are now getting boards with directors who are picking up fees. This is money that really should be spent on the community. If you have got a government that is so out of touch with the people of the ACT and so out of touch with reality that they do not know where to spend these funds, then that is a government that should not be in office.

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