Page 3092 - Week 10 - Tuesday, 23 August 2005
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The Children and Young People Commissioner Bill does not include provision for child death review, employment screening or an expanded role for the Official Visitor, which were identified as possible functions for the proposed children and young people commissioner. These provisions will be included in phase two of the legislation, as further policy development and consultation is required to put in place an effective structure. Some further policy development in relation to the Official Visitor and children’s services council will be addressed in the amendments to the Children and Young People Act.
The 2005-06 budget provides $1.5 million over four years through the Department of Justice and Community Safety to establish a children and young people commissioner in the ACT. The appointment of the commissioner is an appointment of the executive and, with the passage of this legislation, will be expected in late 2005 or early 2006.
The Public Advocate Bill 2005 changes the name of the Community Advocate to the public advocate, in line with the recommendations by the Foundation for Effective Markets and Governance, also known as FEMAG. The government agreed to make a change, choosing the name preferred by the Office of the Community Advocate itself, which was the ACT public advocate. As well as changing the name of the office, the bill is a re-write of the legislation into more up-to-date and accessible language.
With no substantive change to the provisions, the public advocate will be able to continue the valuable work of the Community Advocate, looking after the interests of individuals in our community who are vulnerable and need extra help. The name public advocate is intended to reflect the wide range of advocacy roles that the office carries out. It is important that we, as a community, provide for the more vulnerable members of the commonality to have someone who can advocate on their behalf when they need to deal with service providers or bureaucratic processes.
The public advocate will be there to advocate on behalf of individuals. The Human Rights Commission (Children and Young People Commissioner) Amendment Bill being debated will create a new commissioner within the human rights commission to have particular responsibility for statutory oversight of matters to do with services for children and young people.
As the Community Advocate has, from the beginning, exercised functions relating to the protection of the rights of children, this bill contains consequential amendments to ensure that there is no conflict between the provisions relating to the public advocate and those relating to the human rights commission. The main focus of the public advocate is to advocate on behalf of individuals to ensure their particular concerns and needs are addressed. The human rights commission will be concerned with situations where service delivery was not of the expected standard and with systemic issues relating to service delivery generally.
Because the cumulative experience of a number of individuals may point to systemic concerns, provisions have been included in this bill to allow the public advocate to refer issues to the human rights commission where appropriate. Complaints about services for children and young people will become the responsibility of the human rights
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