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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2004 Week 08 Hansard (Thursday, 5 August 2004) . . Page.. 3483 ..

very large part in the systemic failure. The report says that it is principally a systemic failure and that individual caseworkers are working hard looking after the kids; it is the systems they have to play with that have let them down and let our kids down.

I know that those opposite, and other members in this chamber, have decided that a great way to get themselves re-elected is by sensationalising an issue. It is one thing to put it into the public arena; it is another thing to perpetrate a falsehood in the media. That is pretty disgusting. I will reiterate my conversations, and I hope Scott Hannaford is listening to this. If you check the Hansard, it was not Ms Dundas who raised the issue; it was me. In fact, following that, Ms Dundas immediately moved the conversation on to another area of the Children’s Court, and we did not have an opportunity to explore it further. Mr Hannaford, I expect to see that in print tomorrow.

I also expect to see asked in print tomorrow: as chair of that committee, did I go and see the minister and say our kids are unsafe? No, I did not. Why do you think that was, Mr Speaker? It was because I had the undertaking from the department that the statutory obligations would be honoured. It was revealed later that they were not. When this was raised in the context of the report, it slipped through again because of the advice from the department. When the minister realised what was going on, she acted.

I would like to see that in print. I would like to see the litany of initiatives that this minister has delivered in print, instead of the sensationalising scaremongering and creation of fear in the community, which have been the hallmark of recent publications in the Canberra Times. I think it is absolutely deplorable.

This Assembly should be saying, “Thank you very much for bringing this issue forward, Minister. We appreciate what you are doing. We see what you are doing. Let’s all hope that the initiatives pay off.” If you look at the case studies, you will see that they are very old. They are indicative of a systemic malaise. This government, through this minister, has tackled that malaise head on.

I suggest to you, Mr Speaker, that the approach those opposite, particularly the shadow minister—and aptly named “shadow” minister—would have taken would have been to instruct the department to discharge its statutory obligations and hope like heck that nothing happened. Clearly, that is what happened if they had six years of stewardship of this issue. An examination of the dates of those unsafe incidents will reveal that they go way back into the stewardship time of those people.

Now is the time to be a mature parliament, to say, “We have a serious issue on our hands; let’s work collaboratively and collectively under the leadership of this minister and fix it for the safety of these kids.” What is important is the safety of these children, not the re-election chances of people who are struggling for media oxygen and relevance out there. All they are doing is making it difficult for those people in the department who are doing their damndest to make sure these kids are protected.

Every time those officers stand up to you and belt that particular child protection service, they lower the morale of the people working there. They make it more difficult for those people to be effective when they try intervention programs. Well, good on you! I hope you sleep at night knowing full well that your actions over there are working against the rights, interests and wellbeing of children and young people. The government has put its

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