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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2004 Week 09 Hansard (Tuesday, 17 August 2004) . . Page.. 3673 ..

I would like to draw the Assembly’s attention to an area of serious concern to the committee—the ongoing use of the time-out room at Quamby. When, as part of the justice and community safety standing committee under the chairmanship of Mr Osborne, nearly six years ago, I first visited Quamby the thing that struck me as being the most draconian and most reflective of the seventeenth century was the time-out room at Quamby. That has been on my hit list since that time.

There has been concern about the safety and appropriateness of this room for a long time. For some years the answer has been that it would be fixed in an upgrade of Quamby. The committee is of the view that this situation can continue no longer. The committee has taken the unusual step of calling on the government to direct Quamby to cease using this room until it has been refurbished and is considered safe and appropriate by the Office of the Community Advocate and the Official Visitor. In making this recommendation the committee would like to make it quite clear that the onus is now on the government to find the funds to fix it urgently.

I want to thank members of the community who participated in the inquiry. I also thank my colleagues on the committee for their work in finalising the report. We must take a moment to pause and think about the investment the community has in coming forward in issues like this. These people come before the committee and put their hearts, their souls, their problems and their aspirations on the table in front of us. It takes an enormous amount of courage for people to do that. I never cease to be amazed by the strength of some of these people; were I lucky enough to have that strength.

I also thank the members of the committee for their commitment to a better world for the disadvantaged members of our community. In doing that I refer members to all of the reports this committee has provided to this Assembly since we came together from the inquiry into services for homeless men with children in their custody. We did a whole range of them. All of the reports have had an impact in the community and interstate. I thank members very much for their commitment to that.

This report and others presented by the committee would not have been possible without the professionalism of the committee secretary, Jane Nielson—and, before her, Judith Henderson. The ability of those officers to encapsulate what is in the minds of four politicians—all eager to do the right thing and do lots of good things—and then have it come out in a document that makes sense to anybody is a skill I think they should be congratulated on. I believe the ACT community owes an enormous amount to those two officers. I commend this report to the Assembly. I urge all members to read the report and to read each and every one of the recommendations.

MS DUNDAS (10.42): I rise to echo Mr Hargreaves’s words in the tabling and presenting of this report in relation to how Quamby is working for our young people in the community. This is a very timely report and, as Mr Hargreaves has indicated, I think it rounds off quite nicely the inquiries the community services and social equity committee have been undertaking over the term of this Assembly. One thing that has become clear in relation to this report is that there needs to be more done to turn the rhetoric into action when we are talking about young people and their involvement with the juvenile justice system.

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