Page 4487 - Week 11 - Tuesday, 18 October 2011
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(c) a range of other service delivery failures, including institutionalised abuse within the grandparent and kinship care program and bullying and violence of young people at the Bimberi Youth Justice Centre; and
(2) expresses a want of confidence in the Minister for Community Services.
I thank members for leave. Governments in Australia operate on the Westminster principle: the constitutional convention under which ministers are the link between parliaments and every action of a government. As Nugget Coombs put it in his report to the Royal Commission on Australian Government Administration, a minister “remains responsible to his Cabinet colleagues and to Parliament for decisions made and actions performed under … delegation”.
Westminster principles, particularly the principle of ministerial responsibility, are necessary to ensure that a member of parliament is answerable to the electors for every single decision of government. The preamble to the ACT ministerial code of conduct tells us:
The position of Government Minister is one of trust. A Minister has a great deal of discretionary power, being responsible for decisions which can markedly affect individuals, organisations, companies, and local communities.
Being a Minister demands the highest standards of probity, accountability, honesty, integrity and diligence in the exercise of their public duties and functions. Ministers will ensure that their conduct does not bring discredit upon the Government or Territory.
The code goes on to say:
Ministers will uphold the laws of the Australian Capital Territory and Australia, and will not be a party to their breach, evasion, or subversion.
In sum, our conventions require ministers, as essentially elected heads of a department, to take responsibility for a department’s actions, and our ministerial code of conduct requires ministers to uphold the law of the territory.
So why are we here today? I am bringing on this motion today because of the abject failure of the Minister for Community Services to ensure that the law in relation to children and young people in the care and protection system was obeyed. I am bringing on this motion today because the Minister for Community Services, by her own admission, knew that the law was being broken in July and did nothing to stop that law-breaking.
You have to look at the history so far. A not-for-profit care agency blew the whistle on the minister and her directorate. They raised the issues with the minister’s office—they did the right thing; they tried to use correct processes—but the minister’s office went doggo: they claimed that they had never received this agency’s email and they took no action and no interest in this. So the agency came to the opposition.
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