Page 148 - Week 01 - Wednesday, 10 February 2010
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other part of this figure is that the ACT is the only jurisdiction over the reporting period where we have seen a decline in expenditure in real terms. Now, the minister likes to come back and say, “But we have not talked about the budget that is currently at hand because we have not finished the reporting period.” That would be reported upon next year, and we look ahead, we look in anticipation for improvement in the government’s performance which will not be based on assertion from the minister.
The minister disgraced herself when she went into print in the Canberra Times on this the other day. Her embarrassing performance on this was, I suppose, what we have come to expect. There were substantial errors in this. The first one, of course, was predictable. It is what governments always say: “These figures are old.” Ms Burch went into print the other day and said that these figures were two years old.
Some of the figures are five years old, yes, and some of them are two years old, but the most recent figures relate to the position as at 30 June 2009. They were slightly more than six months old when they were reported. They were not two-year-old figures, and that is one of the false facts, one of the factoids that this minister put in her foray into the media the other day.
It went on, but if you look at the tables, if you look at the graphs and if you look at the information that that supports, real, total, recurrent expenditure on child protection and out-of-home care in the ACT fell from a high of $39 million in 2004-05 to a low of $30 million in 2007-08 and up slightly to $31 million in 2008-09. Over the period, there was a decline—the only jurisdiction in the country in which this occurred. I wonder whether the children of the ACT think that they are better off under a Stanhope Labor government.
There are other figures there that are of considerable concern. I think it is incumbent upon us to delve deeper into them. This might be a job for an appropriate committee. Figures in table 14.5 show that the ACT substantiation rates, after initial decisions not to substantiate, are amongst the worst in the country. It is a complex thing, but what it boils down to is that someone makes a report that they are concerned about someone being at risk. The report is looked at and they decide that there is no case to answer. In 30 per cent of cases in the ACT, those reports are eventually substantiated within 12 months of their not being substantiated.
It is a stand-out figure—much, much higher than any other comparable figures in the country. They are difficult figures to compare, but I think that it does ring alarm bells, and it should ring alarm bells for the people in the community. The minister also claimed, and she claimed again yesterday, that we had the best response times. In fact, that is simply not true. Other jurisdictions do much better than us in responding more quickly to reports of abuse or children at risk.
Turning briefly to the juvenile justice system, I need to point out some of the issues in the report. Figure 15.17 shows that the ACT has the highest average rate in Australia of detention of Indigenous juveniles—that is, people aged 10 to 17. In the ACT, looking at the underlying rate at table 15A.174, the ratio of Indigenous to non-Indigenous detention suggests that for every one non-Indigenous juvenile in detention per 100,000, 61.3 Indigenous juveniles are detained. This is a very large jump from earlier figures.
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