Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .

Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2004 Week 08 Hansard (Thursday, 5 August 2004) . . Page.. 3501 ..

I think the government’s response to this inquiry is part of the way forward in child protection and services to young people in the ACT. It might not be everything everybody wants. I imagine all of us in this place today wish that it could be everything we want. I am sure that we all wish that no child or young person in the ACT needed the services, the support or the advocacy that this report and the government’s response acknowledges is needed because it is part of the government’s community responsibility to support children and young people. Those services are needed. We are doing everything we can to provide them and we will build on this. This supplementary response is only one part of what this government is doing to improve services to children and young people in the ACT.

I feel that I need to defend myself against some of the comments that have been made, particularly comments made recently by Ms Dundas and repeated in this chamber today, and Mrs Burke accusing me of knowing something and hiding it from everybody which, I have to say, I find personally offensive. In relation to the issue that arose yesterday, it is true that there was comment in a committee appearance that I attended on 21 February. In relation to section 162 (2), there is a comment in the Hansard of that date that went for about 10 seconds of a two-hour hearing.

I am not walking away from the fact that a large part of the content of that hearing was about services to children and young people and issues the community services committee had had. We had lots of discussion about that and I am not walking away from it. All of that conversation was framed—and it is also noted in the committee’s report—that the committee was greatly encouraged to see family services engaged in a refocus. It notes the confidence that the OCA had placed in that.

We talked about that all through the refocus. I had been briefed on the refocus and was of the understanding that all the issues being raised as problems with family services were well in hand. That was the information I had. It has been said that I had been given information and that I knew there were problems in family services. Yes, I did know there were problems in family services, but I noted the comments of my department and the committee that the refocus work was underway; that the coroner had congratulated that work; that the OCA had a new relationship with one of the officers in family services and that she said she was confident that reforms would occur under this refocus agenda.

The committee stopped short of calling for an inquiry into family services because of this refocus agenda, because things were heading the same way. There was a diversion of about 15 seconds to section 162 (2), which was answered incorrectly by an officer sitting next to me as being a matter relating to an annual report. That answer was not clarified; nobody from the committee followed it up with me; nobody from the committee wrote to me; no-one asked me to reappear in front of the committee; nobody from the Community Advocate’s office spoke to me about their evidence during this inquiry; and the department was not asked to provide a supplementary response. The committee did not even make a recommendation about the government’s and the department’s non-compliance with section 162 (2). They said, “You should make sure performance contracts have a part in them that says you have to meet your statutory obligations.” As part of the government’s industrial relations agenda we have been moving away from individual performance contracts, and we noted that in our response.

Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .