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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2004 Week 07 Hansard (Thursday, 1 July 2004) . . Page.. 3157 ..

us soon, the audit and also the rewritten response of the minister to the report of the committee that looked at these issues. So I am actually not prepared to jump up and down in quite the way as Mrs Burke at this point; I am waiting to see both those documents before I am prepared to go into too much detail about how terribly Katy Gallagher has failed. I do not think that we are in a position to do that at this point at all.

But what I would like to take the opportunity to talk about and focus on—because it is something that is so easily overlooked in this conversation and is much more exciting, contentious and conflicting—is the particular issue that started this inquiry by Cheryl Vardon, which was the failure of compliance with the statutory obligation. That is all very interesting and political, et cetera, but what the Vardon report also states again is that we have to look at the broad social context and the general and broad social services that we provide if we are to have any analysis of how we protect children or how we support the wellbeing of children in our community.

I think the cultural issues are particularly challenging, but not just in family services. I think in Australia we have this notion that we’re egalitarian, we are proud of the fair go ethic; but the reality is quite different. We have our fair share of prejudice and intolerance as well as an increasingly market-based, individualistic and materialistic society that does not know quite how to integrate with those qualities of a fair go for all and the compassionate or egalitarian community.

We have our national leaders at the moment—potentially supported by some members in this place—both government and opposition federally telling us that they want us to be inclusive and tolerant and to reject violence and all sorts of emotional abuse of children. At the same time they publicly demonise lesbian mothers and their children by telling us and them that they are not fit to be seen on television, thereby making it clear that, in their view, it is not the quality of the parenting or the love that counts, it’s the sexuality of the parents.

My question is: how do these views affect the many children who are being raised in families other than heterosexual families? How does it feel to be a child who is told that their family is so unacceptable that it cannot be seen on television? Where does that fit into the discussion about social inclusion and tolerance? Where does that fit into the discussion about violence, isolation and child abuse? We also have our political leaders telling us it is in the national interest to keep children behind razor wire and in detention camps for years because they come from somewhere else.

I raise these issues because they have to be acknowledged as part of the abuse of children in Australia. And this is part of the story we tell as a nation; it is part of who we are. You cannot separate that story that we tell as a nation from any debate on child abuse and social exclusion. What chance do we have as a society to develop an ethic of care and inclusiveness, of responsibility to all our brothers and sisters, of acceptance and of the enjoyment of difference between us rather than the fear and hatred of it if our leaders are so willing to use that fear for political ends?

To move on from that particular aspect of child abuse: I want to focus, in the time I have left, on the question of the general cultural context of social services that we provide for families in our community. I think it is really important to remember that if we get to

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