Page 3818 - Week 12 - Wednesday, 22 November 2006
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .
After hearing both the minister and her staffer’s response to my concerns, I must remind the minister that the issue at stake is not the manner in which the concern was raised, nor what a young person did to find themselves in Quamby, nor whom they associate with. The issue at stake is the breach of these young people’s human rights while they were the responsibility of the ACT government and held in Quamby, and the rights of every other person who arrives in similar circumstances.
The main issue at stake is that this event occurred after the human rights audit of Quamby was conducted—and I commend the government on initiating this audit. There seems little to prevent such an abuse from occurring again today because the cage has not been removed and the review of standing orders is not yet complete. Until the issue of the cage in the Brindabella unit is appropriately dealt with as recommended by the human rights audit and a number of community or non-government organisations associated with Quamby, we will continue to campaign on this issue.
I thank Mr Mulcahy for propagandising, telling the world about, our environment policy earlier on. I am not sure which of our many environment policies he chose to talk about. We have policies on animal welfare, energy, environment protection, nature conservation, urban planning, transport, waste and water. I seek leave to table, for Mr Mulcahy’s interest, our policy on energy, which is the relevant one in which he will find the information that he was apparently seeking about our views on climate change.
Leave granted.
DR FOSKEY: I present the following paper:
Energy—ACT Greens policy, September 2004.
Death of Mr Jim Ritchie
MR STEFANIAK (Ginninderra—Leader of the Opposition) (6.10): Mr Speaker, I rise to put on record my appreciation of the work of Jim Ritchie, a fine Canberran and Australian who tragically died last week, Jim Ritchie. Jim Ritchie lived in Reid and founded in 1984 and ran Professional Careers Australia, which he expanded into the longest-running recruitment company in Canberra and the longest-running Canberra-owned company in the sector.
Jim was a man of high integrity and honesty, a very sharp businessman and a thorough gentleman. He was a very keen supporter of St John’s Anglican Church at Reid; he was warden and also a very significant fundraiser for the church. He was also very active in Rotary. Indeed, Jim and Sanya, his wife, hosted a number of Rotary exchange students and in latter years, when Jim was semi-retired, he and Sanya would travel overseas and often visit the families of those students.
Indeed, when Jim and Sanya travelled overseas they would write amazing Christmas letters to their friends—and my wife and I are friends of the family—and they were very interesting travelogues. In fact, the last one we got, not long ago—which really
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .