Page 2304 - Week 06 - Friday, 27 June 2008
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Some of the money that has been forthcoming from the Stanhope government seems to come out of the community care area and the community services area rather than out of the health budget, as the minister made clear yesterday. That is welcomed, but, as I said yesterday, half the amount needed is worthless to the people of west Belconnen. If there is a promise and there is a cheque—the minister said the cheque was signed and ready to go—that will never be posted because if there is not enough other money around to get this service off and running then that is of no use.
The service envisaged by the community cooperative is not simply a doctor service; it is about disability services; it is about dietitians; it is about counselling; it is about providing a range of services as a one-stop shop. I sometimes wonder whether the reluctance of the government to really get behind this project is because it is not their project and that they would like, to some extent, to provide a sort of alternative service.
The government has put forward money in the budget for the provision of another child and family centre in west Belconnen. A location for that has not been definitively identified, but it appears that it is likely that it will be in one of the closed west Belconnen schools of Higgins or Holt. While I do not want to appear churlish, and I think that the work of the child and family centres appears to be good, it is still early days. We have the slick new centre in Gungahlin—that does seem to have been well received in the community—but at this stage there has been no real evaluation of the programs and whether that is the best form of delivery for the programs.
The government seems intent on rolling out more child and family centres without testing the model before they roll out other examples. I do not want to be seen as being negative; I just think that we should be careful when spending this money and ensure that it is actually delivering what the government and the Assembly and the community expect.
I would like to see in the future an assessment, an evaluation, of the programs and the centres to see that they are actually meeting the aims of the government and the community. This should be done before we invest too much money in the west Belconnen model. This is not to say that the government should not build the west Belconnen model; rather, build it in the sure knowledge that it is working. The information gained by evaluating the existing centre should be used before you go and start a new one.
There are a few areas that I want to touch on. Mrs Burke spoke about the need for a territory-wide peak body for the autism and Asperger’s group. That is a group in the community that is doing it really tough. I take my hat off to the families who from day to day struggle with a complex and difficult condition in their families. It is a huge insight for us in this Assembly to realise when we move through the community just how tough some people do it. I think about this a lot.
During the so-called school closure consultation back in 2006, I met a lady at Copland college who told the minister and anyone else who cared to listen to her of the difficulties that she was going to experience if her school was to be closed. She had two children with autism who were at school, and the youngest of their children had
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