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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2004 Week 07 Hansard (Tuesday, 29 June 2004) . . Page.. 2998 ..

MS GALLAGHER (Minister for Education and Training, Minister for Children, Youth and Family Support, Minister for Women and Minister for Industrial Relations) (12.41): I will respond to some of the issues that have been raised around this. I thank members for their support for this amendment and very important line in the budget. It has been a very difficult year for child protection.

I should point out that this line also relates to the Office for Children, Youth, and Family Support. There was a significant amount of expenditure in the budget around initiatives for young people, youth justice, youth centres, turnaround and funding for the Messengers program in Tuggeranong. That was a very strong part of the budget—the recognition that we needed to provide additional support for young people at risk. There was some additional money there for the youth coalition to continue their very important work in providing a voice in the youth policy debates.

Around child protection, Mrs Burke has said that the government needs to take responsibility and make decisions. I would argue that that is exactly what we have been doing since January. We have taken responsibility for a system that has been in failure for a number of years. We have instigated something that I do not believe has ever been done in the ACT—a thorough review—with the audit report still to come. That level of work has never been done on child protection in the ACT. I would say that that is taking responsibility for a system that provides a very important service to children and young people in the ACT. No matter how much Mrs Burke wants to lay the failure of child protection at the feet of this government, it did happen under the previous government.

Mrs Burke: No. It came to the attention of your government. No way! Look at the chronology.

MS GALLAGHER: I have looked at the chronology, and it did happen under the previous government. No matter how hard it is for you to hear that and no matter how much you do not want to hear it, it did happen, Mrs Burke. If you have read the chronology you will understand that. If you want to start from when the law was implemented in May 2001, we can argue about that. That is when it started.

In relation to Mrs Burke’s allegations that there has not been enough scrutiny of the money being allocated to this, she cited different figures, and I can certainly go through some of those figures. The $7.382 million was to provide for the additional cost of substitute care days required and the increase in the cost of those substitute care days. I provided extensive evidence to the Estimates Committee on the third appropriation about that. In fact, I appeared twice before that committee. The $2.845 million is the $1.8 million for substitute care that was announced by the Chief Minister in January, plus an additional $1 million for additional staff; $64,000 is depreciation and the $464,000, from memory, is a capital injection to provide for those extra staff.

The $24 million is the $6 million over four years. That is simple times tabling—if you multiply six by four, you get 24. The scrutiny I went under included four hours in front of you, Mrs Burke, in the Estimates Committee process where all the figures were provided including the announcement that there would be a further $6 million sought for response to Vardon. I must commend Ms Dundas, who asked tonight what the $6 million is going towards. I let the Assembly know that that is the first time I have been asked that

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