Page 4490 - Week 11 - Tuesday, 18 October 2011
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have bothered to listen to the complaints of grandparent and kinship carers, this will come as no surprise. But this is not Vicki Dunne telling you this. This is not even Marion Le telling you this. This is the ACT’s Public Advocate.
There are legions of stories of people who have had children given to them, with no support. I had a lady in my office only yesterday afternoon who told me that when her grandchildren were delivered to her, she had no bed for them for a number of months and they shared a bed with her. These children were so traumatised that this woman could not go and have a shower by herself, because they were so afraid of losing their grandmother. These children only want care and protection to ensure that they can continue to live with their grandmother. But the care and protection service does not ask them what they want despite the legislation requiring them to do so. How can this be in the best interests of the children? How can this minister preside over such an organisation?
Let us look at what this minister knew and when. I became aware of the problems of the agency that is the subject of the report on 6 September and I met with them on 7 September. I received a briefing from the department on 8 September and I wrote to the minister on Friday, 9 September and again on Monday, 12 September. I also wrote to the Public Advocate, the children’s commissioner and the Ombudsman.
The minister announced an inquiry on Wednesday, 14 September. In her eagerness to show how proactive she had been and who had acted most decisively first—whether it was her or me—she told the Assembly in question time in September that she knew about these breaches in July. She repeated it this morning on 666. We also know that these placements continued until 9 August. The minister can no longer claim that she was kept in the dark. By her own words, she put an end to that claim. On 20 September she told the Assembly:
… in late July I was briefed by the directorate on a number of things, including … the occasional use of unapproved agency staff in emergency situations. I continued to ask for assurances from that point that these placements met our standards.
Actually, she knew in July that they were illegal. The placements were going on and she did not stop them. The placements could not have met our standards, because they were illegal. What does the ministerial code of conduct say? It says:
The minister will uphold the law of the Australian Capital Territory and Australia, and will not be a party to their breach, evasion, or subversion.
The minister has condemned herself. She knew in July, and these actions continued into August. She knew in July that the law was being broken, but what she did was to seek assurances. She did not demand that the practices stop immediately; she just sought assurances. The illegal placements stopped only when the agency ceased them. These placements might well be still going on if that agency had not blown the whistle on the department’s bad practices.
This minister has condemned herself. At the very least, even if she cannot claim complete ignorance of what was going on in her department until July, by her own
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