Page 5775 - Week 14 - Wednesday, 7 December 2011
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once, the government will not be allowed to pay lip-service to the report and its recommendations and then quietly file it in the bottom drawer never to see the light of day again. For once it seems that the government will have to replace that lip-service with real action. For once, we will not have a repeat of what we saw with the Vardon review, where, several years down the track, we find ourselves in a disappointing and extremely unfortunate state of deja vu with the care and protection system. I, for one, applaud the commission’s commitment to seeing this through. In following through, the commission has now written twice to the minister, giving feedback on the government’s response to and interpretation of the report’s recommendations. It has made a thorough analysis of the government’s response.
The commission’s recommendation which is the subject of Ms Hunter’s motion today is one that the commission clearly considered to be important and is one on which the commission has concerns about the government’s response. That recommendation, No 4.4, asks the government to “establish a Youth Justice Advisory Panel to guide the development of a statement of purpose for the youth justice system and to monitor the ongoing translation of this purpose into practice”. The government did not agree with that recommendation, stating that the youth justice implementation task force has the role of developing the blueprint for youth justice in the ACT and monitoring its implementation. The government said that the task force could engage other expertise as required and that, as such, a youth justice advisory panel was not warranted.
Whilst welcoming the establishment of the task force and acknowledging the expertise of the task force, the commission considers that there is a need for a specialist advisory panel to provide expert advice to the task force. Importantly, the commission noted that the task force would have a finite term of operation but that an advisory panel could be an ongoing resource for government and the directorate.
This, in a nutshell, is the substance of Ms Hunter’s motion, and this is what the Canberra Liberals agree with. We agree with it because, like the Human Rights Commission’s approach, it is one that does not allow the government to gloss over important matters. Like the Human Rights Commission and Ms Hunter, I applaud the establishment of the task force and acknowledge that there is expertise in that task force. But I have also noted the government’s own statement that the task force is free to engage other expertise as required. This says to me that the task force does not have the breadth of expertise required to deal with all aspects of the very major and critically important projects that confront it. Quite simply, establishing an advisory panel puts some formality around the process by which the task force might seek the kind of expertise it will require. The range of expertise that Ms Hunter’s motion calls for on the advisory panel is well considered and will serve to provide the task force with the support it needs.
In establishing an advisory panel, Ms Hunter’s motion also takes the opportunity to implement recommendation 7.7 of the commission’s report. This recommendation calls on the government to work with the advisory panel to “develop and implement a suite of risk and protective assessment tools for vulnerable children, young people and their families”. The government agreed in principle with this recommendation. In fact, however, it was more a case of agreeing in part. The government agreed that the suite of risk and protective assessment tools could be developed as part of the blueprint, but talked about a “critical friend” for the youth justice system under the blueprint.
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