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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2004 Week 08 Hansard (Wednesday, 4 August 2004) . . Page.. 3437 ..

community as a whole and talking about families, I would like to remind members that it was the federal Liberal government and Labor opposition, unfortunately, that told every child in Australia who lives with lesbian parents that their family is not fit to be seen on television. If you are seriously interested in how as a society we are alienating children and what we are doing to families, you need to have a little look at that particular response because it cannot be argued that that is in any way supportive of that particular family grouping.

I know that, in her speech, Mrs Burke said she had a fairly narrow definition of family, but it was the Australian Family Association’s definition that she quoted. I recognise that it is more open in the legislation, but I have to say that I think there is a real danger that this is coming from a very conservative ethic which is not actually informed in any way by all the evidence coming up about what we are doing to support children in our society who are vulnerable in most circumstances in the family situation. All that work says absolutely that we support families.

As I said—and I will repeat it—this most recent audit has said once again that we need thorough support, therapeutic engagement and so on with families. No-one is denying that we want to work with families, but what we are saying is that this dichotomy being set up by Mrs Burke around the rights of the child versus the rights of parents is dangerous and ill informed.

MRS CROSS (3.45): Mr Speaker, I understand the sentiment in Mrs Burke’s bill. However, I generally view with some caution proposals that would lead to the establishment of yet more bureaucratic organisations. I also tend to view as a first and more important step the need to take a long, hard look at the span of responsibility, efficiency and effectiveness of the bureaucratic structures that already exist before we leap to conclusions that will perhaps produce new organisations.

We have had, in 2001, the Community Advocate’s audit of the child protection system and in the recent past the Vardon report and now the follow-up independent audit report by Gwenn Murray. They, along with ACT coroners, the Ombudsman and the ACT Health Child at Risk Protection Unit, have all been damning and critical of the way the ACT’s child protection system has been handled. The upshot of that process was not to create a spate of new organisations to resolve the problem but to take measures to make the organisations directly or indirectly responsible for child protection more effective, more efficient, better coordinated and better structured internally and so forth.

The first priority is to ensure that what we do have is made to work better. Under a range of circumstances, including poor leadership, understaffing or awkward structuring, there is generally a tendency for organisations to become slack and let their focus blur or for morale to be adversely affected, et cetera. Whatever the organisational malady, it has to be treated first and no thought should be perhaps given to creating new structures until everything has been done to shake up the malfunctioning bodies.

The particularly dysfunctional state of the child protection system within the Department of Education, Youth and Family Services cried out for more focused and better structured attention on that daunting problem and ultimately resulted in a recommendation by the Standing Committee on Community Services and Social

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