Page 2572 - Week 07 - Tuesday, 5 June 2012
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We heard Ms Hunter start by saying there are significant failures. Okay. What does a litany of significant failures deserve as a response from this place? It deserves action. It deserves something concrete. And it deserves a minister to be held accountable, because that is what we do in here. The parliament holds the ministry, the executive, to account. But there is no accountability when we simply say, “We accept you have accepted the seven recommendations and we are sure that things will get better.” Ms Hunter went on to say that a vote of no confidence is not required because it does not meet the test. Well, what is the test? How dramatic does it have to get? How bad does the situation have to deteriorate? How many kids need to be taken into care, after, as Anita Phillips says, up to 10 visits by the staff, before the Greens will hold the government to account? I think is it is a Greens’ positioning about what might happen after the election rather than care for kids.
We had the opening line from the minister—fairly predictable—that child protection is some sort of distraction. Child protection is not a distraction. Child protection is at the essence of what good governments do; they look after the most vulnerable—and there are none more vulnerable in our society than the children in our care, the children of our society. If you think this is a distraction, you go and look those kids in the eye and say, “Sorry, it was a waste of time talking about your future, talking about your vulnerability, talking about your security—because I’m the minister and I’ve got far more important things to do than honestly answer the report from Anita Phillips and honestly answer why, eight years after Vardon, Anita Phillips in her position cannot say that you are better off.” She cannot say it because the kids are not better off. So this is not a distraction. This should never be a distraction, and you should never say that. You should apologise for saying that this is just a distraction from other important issues.
I cannot think of a single more important issue that this place should discuss than the care and protection of children. I cannot think of a single more important service of a good local government—indeed, you aspire to be the best local government in the country—than the services that it provides to protect children. But, according to the Labor Party, supported by the Greens, it is simply a distraction. Well, you are damned by your own words, and I will make sure everyone I know knows that Joy Burch thinks that debating the care and protection of our children is simply a distraction.
Ms Burch said, “But it was my request that Anita Phillips do this inquiry.” Yes—after the Canberra Liberals had written, after the Canberra Liberals had exposed what was going on, after the Canberra Liberals had made public the 24 breaches of law, after the Canberra Liberals had done the work that you, minister, failed to do and continue to fail to do. She said, “I wrote and requested a review.” But you were late to the start and you are late to the finish, because you are not particularly interested in what is happening in your portfolio, or you are not capable of understanding what is in your portfolio.
The minister read out the litany of all of the things that the government purports to have done: “Look, we’ve thrown more money at the problem. We’ve had more reviews. We’ve done more paperwork.” And you still have not fixed the problem, so you should do those kids a courtesy and just simply resign, because, if you think that
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