Page 4506 - Week 11 - Tuesday, 18 October 2011
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talking about things that are unfeeling or uncaring or unhurtable; we are talking about children. “Are you breaching the law?” “Yes, we have, minister.” “Stop it.” That conversation does not seem to have occurred, and it certainly has not been reported here by the minister in her defence. Indeed, when Ms Gallagher takes 75 per cent of the time allotted to her to recite the statistics and lecture us about “you do not understand”, it is because she does not have a defence for the minister. We are yet to hear a case that the no confidence motion should not be supported by any of the parties in this place.
The reality is that you can quote statistics all you like, but you did not go to the heart of the matter. The Chief Minister said, “Huge changes have occurred”. What has actually occurred? The minister also said, “We have put in enormous amounts of money”—a standard Labor Party response to any crisis: flood the issue with money as a measure of success. “We spent more.” But, having spent more, you would appear to have achieved a lot less, because you did not get the fundamental right, which is that we have a rule of law: “I, as minister, will make sure my department adheres to the rule of law and through that rule of law we will minimise the impact on the children in our care.” And it did not occur.
The minister is responsible through the government’s own code of conduct for ministers. It says:
Ministers will uphold the laws of the Australian Capital Territory and Australia, and will not be a party to their breach, evasion, or subversion.
Before the minister was informed in late July, it is hard for her to be party to a breach, evasion or subversion of the law. But when she is told that this has occurred and she does not stop it immediately, she is party to breach, evasion and subversion of the law—and on that judgement alone is worthy of no confidence in this place.
It is an interesting measure of what no confidence means as against censure and against grave concern. Last sitting week I was censured for putting out a press release that people did not like. Did my press release affect any children? No. Did it cause them any pain? No. Did it cause them suffering? No, it did not. But I got censured.
The minister talks about taking the politics out of this issue. If you do your job properly there will be no politics in this issue. But the job is not being done properly and that is where ministerial responsibility kicks in, and that is why this minister should face a motion of no confidence and be found to be lacking the confidence of this Assembly, and that is why this minister should go. It is not like she did not know. It is not like it was not raised in estimates this year back in May. It is not like it was not raised in estimates last year.
When you get a community member talking about institutionalised child abuse in our child and protection service, you have got a problem, and as a minister, under ministerial responsibility in the code of conduct, under normal Westminster practice, under common sense, you ask the questions and you fix it. You do not seek assurances. You behave like a minister who is responsible to this place and you do the job for which you accept the warrant and the payment. And that job is not being done.
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