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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2004 Week 08 Hansard (Thursday, 5 August 2004) . . Page.. 3490 ..

This issue is not about whether the Canberra Times is always accurate in its reporting and it is not about Ms Dundas; it is about a serious issue, that is, child protection. How many reports does the government need before it takes action? How many reports have to be handed down? I am not saying anything against the minister, as I do not believe that she is a bad person. However, when members state, “We do not want to use the blame game here; we just want to move forward”, that is a very weak way out of what we consider to be a moral obligation.

The government does not have to sack everybody down the line in order to send out a clear message; it has to sack the chief executive officer as the onus is on her and the buck stops with her. She should have been sacked. Why was she not sacked? Did she threaten to sue? Would that have exposed other things? Who knows? She should have been sacked. If she had been sacked it would have sent a clear message to everybody else who might not have performed their duties in the best possible way.

The victims in this case have been the children. The Vardon report reveals that there have been 45 deaths, 15 of which have been unexplained. Why on earth should we accept that? That is the truth; it is not a lie. Fifteen deaths have been unexplained. Why is it that nobody has paid for that? Someone must accept responsibility for that. Only one chief executive officer was there the whole time. This is an immoral weaselling out of a moral obligation. This is a desperate defence that shows plain disregard for the facts before us. Members of the crossbench deliberately did not make comments about this when the report first came out. We did not say anything until the auditor’s report came out. Now we have every right to make a comment because the process has been completed. That is usually the way in which we operate, which Mr Hargreaves referred to as “struggling for relevance”. What a pathetic argument!

It being 45 minutes after the commencement of Assembly business, the debate was interrupted in accordance with standing order 77. Ordered that the time allotted to Assembly business be extended by 30 minutes.

MRS CROSS: It is a shame that Mr Hargreaves turned this debate into a dirty political fight just because of something that was on the front page of today’s newspaper. It is a shame because this is not about the newspaper; this is about our children. This is about children who have died and it is about their unexplained deaths. This issue is about a lack of accountability. When the former government was in office members of the present government took every opportunity to make the former government accountable in relation to a number of issues. That is the right thing to do and that is what we are here for. We are all here to make governments accountable. This government is not exempt from that. Heads should have rolled. The chief executive officer should have been sacked. It was irresponsible of the government not to do so. As I said earlier, it is an immoral weaselling by this government out of a moral obligation.

MS TUCKER (11.35): I will comment, first, on the supplementary response to the report of the Standing Committee on Community Services and Social Equity. I agree with what Ms Dundas said: I am not totally impressed with the government’s response. The government said that it had noted quite a number of recommendations but it has now changed the word “noted” to “agreed” or “agreed in principle”. If we read the text of the

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