Page 2481 - Week 08 - Wednesday, 29 June 2005
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done what to whom, just concentrates on procedural matters around the establishment of a working party to look at the programs that are offered in Quamby. It is not about what is going on in Quamby now. It is not about the investment we are making and the changes we are making to ensure that we are improving the life and opportunities of children and young people who are living at Quamby at the moment. This amendment seeks to recognise that.
We are not standing here and saying that Quamby is in any way an ideal facility that enables us to meet the rehabilitation needs of children and young people. It is far from that. I have said on a number of occasions that it is not the environment that we desire, which is why the government has provided $40 million to build a new youth detention facility in the ACT. It is why we have provided significant increases to meet the challenges presented by the existing facility, that is, challenges around the security fencing, the monitoring of children and young people, the use of a time-out room, staff amenity within the building, and the introduction of a demountable in the next few months to increase accommodation options at Quamby.
I note Mr Seselja is interested in the number of services provided to children and young people at Quamby. He seems to think that adequate programs are not being provided there. I have here a list of 47 services currently going into Quamby, government and non-government organisations delivering programs to children and young people in order to meet their individual needs and provide them with some program towards an opportunity for life outside Quamby and also to meet their needs within Quamby. I present the following paper:
Services provided to children and young people at Quamby Youth Detention Centre.
If you listen to Mr Seselja, you would think that the working party that he refers to—he has grabbed hold of this working party—runs Quamby, that nothing happens in Quamby unless this working party meets. In all the media releases he puts out about it he says, “Oh, my goodness, nothing is happening at Quamby because this working party has not met.” You have to understand the role of the working party, Mr Seselja. What runs Quamby is not a working party. It is not vital to the ongoing work of Quamby. I am not demeaning the working party by any means in saying that. The programs on offer have 47 different organisations going into Quamby. That happens regardless of what a working party says or does.
You just have to put the situation in perspective, Mr Seselja. There are hundreds of working parties across government doing a range of things. To run the line that, because a working party was not established by a time that you saw fit to do what it needed to do, means that nothing is happening at Quamby and that we are not meeting the needs of children and young people in Quamby is not a logical step to take. It is not a logical progression and it is not a logical argument. The things that are happening in Quamby are things that are being managed by the Office for Children, Youth and Family Support. They are being delivered by staff at Quamby and by organisations outside Quamby and there are extra resources going in there that have been met by increased ACT government appropriations.
My record on Quamby is a proud one. When I came to this portfolio I got $13.5 million to rebuild Quamby. When that was not enough, I went back to cabinet and won another
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