Page 2580 - Week 07 - Tuesday, 5 June 2012
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responsible for cabinet decisions made in 1998. That is a new test of ministerial responsibility, but, of course, it is not the test to which this Chief Minister holds her own.
The Public Advocate has come out and said, “We knew that this was a problem when Cheryl Vardon told us in 2004,” and she came out last week and said that the issues that were raised by Ms Vardon in 2004 are still relevant today. We have not fixed the system; we have not addressed the system. Ms Hunter has the audacity to stand up here today and say: “Oh, but it’s all right. We shouldn’t actually have a more thorough inquiry into that because it may not be fair on the staff.” What about the kids? This minister is charged with looking after the kids. But she came in here today and did as my colleagues predicted—I actually thought that she would not stoop so low—and said that this was a distraction on budget day.
This is the very first opportunity the Canberra Liberals have had of raising this issue. We think it is so important that we took the very first opportunity to do something about it. It is interesting, because Ms Hunter was in my office yesterday, and I held up this report and I said, “What are the Greens going to do about this report?” And she looked at me and sort of said: “Well, we’re not going to have any motions this week because we have other priorities. We have other motions that we want to put on.” I put it to you, Madam Deputy Speaker, that the first priority should not be the Greens’ other bills or the other motions; the first priority we should have are our most vulnerable children. The Canberra Liberals took the first opportunity. The Greens failed the test of accountability here today.
The last time the Public Advocate reported, the Greens actually brought themselves to censure this minister. I thought perhaps today we would at least get a censure out of this and perhaps today, after mounting the case for months and months and months about just how incompetent Joy Burch is as the Minister for Community Services, as the minister responsible for children and young people, that these people who claim to be the upholders of the weak and the vulnerable would actually grow some backbone and stand up to this government. In fact, they have become even weaker, even more supine. What have they done? This is what the outcome will be today, because Ms Burch has already said, “We’ll be very happy to support this.” The Greens’ amendment calls on the government to act on all recommendations in the final report and publicly release the milestone reviews.
That is what this government did in relation to Vardon—they put out regular reports about how well they were doing. Those reports amounted to nothing, because eight years later we are still in the same situation. We are still in the situation where the Public Advocate cannot put her hand on her heart and say that the children in the care and protection system are safer than they were in 2004.
I was driving my daughter to school on Friday when I heard her say that. I nearly drove off Hindmarsh Drive. My 17-year-old daughter was horrified to hear a high official in the ACT saying that we cannot guarantee that these kids are better off after eight years of work in this place. It does not pass the common man test. The people in the street are horrified to know of the circumstances that these children live in and of the blase approach taken by this government and their supporters on the crossbench.
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