Page 5907 - Week 14 - Wednesday, 8 December 2010
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What we need to do when we are talking about this motion is say, “Where does the integrity to actually facilitate change lie? Is this just a witch-hunt? If it is just a witch-hunt, let it be exposed for that. If it is not a witch-hunt, if this is a genuine attempt to make things better in an institution crying out for change, we will support it.”
Members on this side of the house are supporting an inquiry, a forensic look into it, with all of the protections, the freedoms and the confidential briefings—in camera briefings, if necessary—that accompany that. You do not need to have an inquiry under the Inquiries Act to achieve that. An Inquiries Act inquiry will not do any more than the inquiry being initiated by the minister here.
We also need to understand that the services for people in the Bimberi centre are about saving people. We need to be able to go out into the community and say, “That is what Bimberi is all about. It is all about saving kids. You cannot save these kids in an atmosphere of lack of confidence. We know that; we have accepted that. We are not going to exploit that for political gain.”
The inquiry that this minister has put together is about looking not only at the structures, procedures and practices but at what underpins all of that. What is the culture all about? That needs looking at as well. We recognise that. A judicial inquiry will merely look into whether a law has been broken and what action should be taken; it will not look into the structures and the cultures behind it, the root cause of the problem.
I would argue that when the officers were recruited for the AMC they were recruited with a certain degree of greenfield. Some of those people brought in a culture from elsewhere, and it was the wrong one. We need to look at that. What we really need to do is make sure that we are not having a political and public execution for its own sake. I know that Ms Hunter has an incredible degree of angst around this, and I share it. I would like to see the cultural shift in Bimberi go in the same direction as the cultural shift at the AMC.
Mr Hanson: Oh, that is poor.
MR HARGREAVES: I would like to see Mr Hanson—
Mr Hanson: That would be a success, Johnno.
MR HARGREAVES: I would like to see Mr Hanson out of the argument altogether; he is just not helpful to it—not helpful to it at all.
At the end of the day, when this is all done and dusted, we have to go home and sleep and try and ask ourselves some questions. Did we do the right thing for these kids? Did we do this for some selfish motivation to get somebody else in the frame or did we do this in a genuine attempt to make things right for these kids? I suggest,
members, that the inquiry put forward by the minister is an attempt to do that. I suggest, members, that—given the intention, the integrity and the commitment of this minister to achieving that—it is worth while for us to support it. I suggest that the call for an inquiry under the Inquiries Act is a mere piece of political opportunism here. It
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