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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2004 Week 08 Hansard (Thursday, 5 August 2004) . . Page.. 3487 ..

that ministry. That is what happens. It is no use arguing that these things go back much further and that somehow previous governments are responsible for them, as that is simply not the case. These things occurred during the watch of this government and it will have to wear them.

Government members interjecting—

MR CORNWELL: Listen to the howls coming from government members. This issue is the responsibility of the government. I welcome and would like to comment on the supplementary response that has been given. The government has agreed to most of these things in principle. I refer to recommendation 22.2, which is not agreed to, and remind members that it will establish a clear protocol that children and young people in those circumstances have one case worker or manager from family services.

It worries me greatly that that recommendation has not been agreed to. Part of the problem is that too many people have been involved in this issue. We need somebody who has responsibility for each case otherwise these young people will fall through the net. If we have too many people involved, somebody will think that someone else is doing the job. The best interests of the child or the young person will not be observed if we do not have one case worker or manager. Another matter about which I express a great deal of concern is recommendation 26. The committee recommended:

That the government amend the Children and Young People Act 1999 to require mandatory reporting of suspected cases of serious neglect.

The government has not disagreed with that recommendation; it has simply noted it and said:

This recommendation has been considered in consultations with key stakeholders during the review of Children and Young People Act 1999. Amendments to the legislation will be considered by government taking into account the comments made.

I commend to the government the points made by the committee on pages 93 and 94 of its report. The committee admitted that it would be difficult to try to differentiate between occasional neglect and constant neglect. However, that is why we have lawyers and parliamentary draftsmen. I do not believe that that is beyond their wit. Nevertheless, I am concerned that the government has seen fit only to note this matter; I had hoped that it would agree to it. The problem relates to the whole question of mandatory reporting about which all members of the committee have spoken at length to date.

That is the core issue. Various people have not done their jobs. The government is attempting to push responsibility for this matter back onto previous governments when it has been in office for three years. Anyone taking over a government or a ministry has a responsibility to chase up and establish that everything in those ministries is going on in the way that he or she wants it to be. Presumably, this government has policies that are completely different from the policies of previous governments, so one would expect it to check on what is going on.

The government has not given this issue the attention it deserves. I hope that the recommendations set out in this response will be dealt with speedily. I hope that the

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