Page 1463 - Week 04 - Wednesday, 28 March 2012

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They should not have to put so much effort into getting the government to get it right. They are a volunteer organisation; they have a volunteer board; and the board and the paid staff have been unnecessarily distracted from the work that they should be doing, trying to fix up the government’s mess over here.

I agree with Ms Hunter that the Flynn childcare centre is an impressive piece of work. I have not actually had an opportunity to visit it since it has opened, but I made a couple of site visits over the last year. Ms Hunter said that it is incredibly impressive, but there are some issues there. The budget did not extend to proper insulation of the ceiling, and I have real problems in relation to how energy efficient the building is and how difficult it will be for community organisations to run it. When I asked about insulation, they said, “This is a 1972 building and we just do not have the capacity to do that.” They had $4 million to refurbish half a building which was an existing building, which is a substantial building, and they cannot get it right. Yes, it does look good. It is impressive. There were heritage issues there. But it is $4 million for about 10 new places. I do not think that that is good value for money for the people of west Belconnen.

The other issue that is a constant that needs to be touched on with a couple of remarks is the quality of maintenance at CSD-owned childcare centres. There is constant complaint to me by centre managers that they cannot get CSD in to do things. They have to rely on parents or get things done themselves—things that are often emergencies. When the plumbing breaks, they have to get someone in themselves because it takes weeks to get CSD.

I have spoken at length here about the quality of maintenance at Totom in Kaleen. They have been begging CSD to come and fix up the leaks in their roof for some time. I have not had an opportunity to visit them since the last rain, but I suspect it was a disaster for them.

There are ongoing problems with maintenance across this town in CSD-owned facilities which are managed by mainly community organisations. They cannot get it done. Why do you expect that Minister Burch is going to be able to get this $7½ million childcare centre done without blowing the budget and doing it on time? This is why we should support this motion here today.

Question put:

That Mrs Dunne’s motion be agreed to.

The Assembly voted—

Question so resolved in the negative.

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