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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2004 Week 08 Hansard (Wednesday, 4 August 2004) . . Page.. 3438 ..

Equity for the creation of a position of a commissioner for children. The scale of neglect was such that this response was warranted.

But I have difficulty in accepting the proposal for a commissioner for the family in the same light. We already have agencies in place to provide support for family issues, such as the Office of the Community Advocate and the Office for Children, Youth and Family Support. We also have to ensure that these agencies do their job properly before we even start to think about creating new bodies. Therefore, at this stage I am not prepared to support the creation of another bureaucratic body as proposed by this bill.

MRS BURKE (3.48), in reply: I will not take too long to wrap up. I am obviously not going to get full support for this bill. I want to make something very clear. I am not proposing another bureaucratic layer any different from that which the government is proposing with the commissioner for children and young people. I am not trying to set another body up alongside your commissioner for children and young people. I want to make that clear, because I think it is important, as I have always said and maintained, that any decisions about children should not be made in isolation to the family.

This brings me to a point that Ms Tucker made. She was concerned that my definition of the family was narrow. Well, all I can say is that I indeed took advice from Parliamentary Counsel, whom I wish to thank very much for the inordinate amount of time it took to put this small bill together. I’d like to show my thanks and appreciation to Nick Horne particularly and to Sandra—her surname eludes me, I’m sorry.

Mrs Cross: Georges.

MRS BURKE: Sandra Georges. Thank you, Mrs Cross.

I think Ms Tucker referred to my definition as coming from the Australian Family Association. Well, in fact, I laboured and worked hard to ensure that this definition was very inclusive of what we know as a family unit, and I think it is implied. I think it is a broad description.

That aside, I will just make a few comments on members’ contributions. I appreciate your input and thank you very much for that. I certainly look forward to working with the government and joining in the debate at a stage when perhaps the government has its legislation for a commissioner for children and young people drafted and we can debate that robustly.

Ms Gallagher, I guess, read a statement that was prepared for her which was fairly political. It was a fairly negative response, given that she knows and understands where I sit in the situation of care for our most vulnerable. I also have to point out that I think it could be an anomaly that, whilst the office is called Children, Youth and Family Support, in the proposal for a commissioner that will advocate for young children there is no mention of the word “family”. I have had that discussion and I am happy to work with the government on that, at the risk of being pedantic. But I think that it is very important that we include, as I keep saying, the holistic approach.

Ms Gallagher mentioned that it was bad legislation, poorly thought out. I think that is a little bit of an indictment on Parliamentary Counsel as much as anybody,

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