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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2004 Week 08 Hansard (Thursday, 5 August 2004) . . Page.. 3482 ..

because it makes a great headline and it frightens the hell out of families in this town. The people behind that should be thoroughly ashamed of themselves.

Members interjecting—

MR SPEAKER: Order, members! Mr Hargreaves has the floor.

MR HARGREAVES: The role of the media in sensationalising this serious issue is to be deplored, and members of this place that have stoked the media need to share in being deplored. It is an irresponsible thing for them to have done. The responsible thing has been to see the issue and its seriousness and to do something about it. I repeat: the minister saw that there had been a problem and moved to fix it. Have a good look at The territory’s children and then dig deeply. How far do you think this goes?

Mrs Burke: That’s for you to find out.

MR HARGREAVES: Mrs Burke can’t help herself. You’ll get your 15 seconds in the sun, Mrs Burke. Hold your tongue and wait for it, please. Case histories of all of these people will go back an enormous length of time. Guess who was the steward of the children’s safety for most of that time? It was not this government and it was not that minister. That minister acted with the speed of lightening to look after these kids. And what do you do? You get up in the media and you sensationalise it.

Mrs Burke: I do not.

MR HARGREAVES: Mr Speaker, I ask you to warn Mrs Burke because she is making it very difficult.

MR SPEAKER: Direct your comments through the chair, and members will maintain strict order.

MR HARGREAVES: I did. Thank you very much, Mr Speaker. She has been warned once this week. This chamber ought to be saying to the minister, “You’ve acted incisively and quickly—as best you can. You sank a whole lot of money into this thing. You’ve taken the department and shaken it, and you’ve changed the culture. Thank you very much for that. You have revealed all for us. We now have the facts.”

We now have a good idea of what this minister is doing about it, which contrasts with the actions of those opposite. Those opposite promised in 1996 that they would do something, and it took five years for the legislation to turn up—five years of promises that they would report to the ACA on what they were doing. What happened in that time? Absolutely nothing. The legislation comes down and what happens after that? Absolutely nothing.

Then this government came to this side of the chamber for 12 months. What happened? Still nothing. The minister was then told of it. She found out the depth of this. What did she do? What did the Chief Minister do? He stood aside for the duration of an investigation of those people who may have had executive responsibility for it. They then threw a lot of money at it—and about time. One of the consistent themes coming through here is that this area has been underresourced and that underresourcing played a

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