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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2004 Week 07 Hansard (Thursday, 1 July 2004) . . Page.. 3159 ..

The Review recommends that the ACT’s Children’s Plan, the Policy for Young People and the Homelessness Strategy give priority attention to the needs of children and young people in the care and protection system.

The Vardon report is bringing these issues into the conversation. I am sorry to have to say this, but I got an email from your office today about a homeless young person. The language is: “This person is homeless but that’s cool with us and her.” What I find absolutely stunning is that there can be a statement like that made and Mrs Burke has not gone to find that young girl a house.

Mrs Burke: You haven’t given me the opportunity yet, Ms Tucker.

MS TUCKER: So Mrs Burke says she didn’t know.

Mrs Burke: I haven’t had a chance to speak to my adviser. That’s really off.

MS TUCKER: I didn’t know that.

MR SPEAKER: Order! This is not a conversation.

MS TUCKER: Mrs Burke is saying that her office put out this email, but she had no idea that this girl was homeless. Her staff was claiming she was homeless. Okay, I will accept that. Then the question is: if we have young people—

Mrs Burke: I think you should apologise to my office for that statement too.

MS TUCKER: Mrs Burke said I should apologise to her office.

MR SPEAKER: What Mrs Burke said was disorderly, and you can direct your comments through the chair, please, Ms Tucker.

MS TUCKER: We have an email circulated that is naming a young woman as homeless. She is not homeless. Nothing was done to find her a home if she was homeless. The offer was not made from Mrs Burke’s office to find her a home. In fact, she is not homeless at all. It makes me wonder how serious we are in this place. Okay, that is Mrs Burke’s office. There is no apology needed there at all. I accept that Mrs Burke did not know, but I think that this is an outrageous thing to be circulating around the Assembly.

The other point I want to make generally in conclusion is that, as I said, we are going to see an audit coming out and we are going to see a new response to the committee’s report on these issues. I am waiting to see that. I agree with Mrs Burke that there are issues within family services; there have been. The Vardon report does identify a number of those issues, responses and remedies to them; so I wait to see how the government responds.

MS GALLAGHER (Minister for Education and Training, Minister for Children, Youth and Family Support, Minister for Women and Minister for Industrial Relations) (4.05): I thank Mrs Burke for bringing this matter of public importance to the Assembly, because it is a matter of public importance, but I have to say that when I alerted

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