Page 34 - Week 01 - Tuesday, 25 February 2014
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Administrative errors have seen Disability ACT fall deep into debt. One Director talks about it quite openly as the reason for not replacing staff that leave. You have one person doing three jobs. Staff are taking personal leave for stress. And they are stressed. This environment is hell.
Everything is being done under the radar. We are told not to tell carers that Joy Burch was coming to a forum regarding the respite closures. It is all secrets and lies. Protect the Minister is the mantra. But who is protecting the clients? The vulnerable?
Joy Burch will never be held accountable.
Madam Speaker, “protect the minister” is the mantra. That one sentence says it all. This minister is out of her depth and so unable to manage her portfolio that her directorate is left to run it for her, all the while being conscious of protecting her. But as we have heard from my colleagues this morning, this is not a new way of operating. This minister has operated like this for a long time. This minister has form. A sad turn of events that is well documented both in this place and in the media is the minister’s poor handling of the youth justice system in the ACT.
In 2010 the then shadow minister, Mrs Dunne, my predecessor, first starting hearing complaints and concerns from staff at Bimberi. It emerged that staff were subjected to poor working conditions including chronic staff shortages, high staff turnover, frequent lockdown situations, verbal and physical abuse, and assaults. The list goes on.
To make matters worse, the employees that had suffered abuse, both physical and mental, had received no adequate follow up treatment or counselling. Who was in charge of presiding over this appalling situation? Why, it was, again, Minister Burch. This minister’s inability to manage her directorates does not simply result in minor administrative blunders. It impacts directly on the lives and the welfare of those who work in and who are in the care of her directorates.
Madam Speaker, recently this minister oversaw the defunding of youth drop-in centres in favour of an outreach model. This went against the advice of many stakeholders in the community and saw some organisations closing their centres. Others that had the ability hashed together resources and alternate funding to maintain these services only to then later experience a boom in demand as young people began travelling, in some cases great distances, to organise activities that are provided in a safe and appropriate setting. Whilst there is some merit to the outreach model, outreach is awfully difficult to carry out when there are no longer any structured places for young people to congregate. In this space I anticipate that a backflip is looming.
Ms Burch has a history of promoting her political party in some very inappropriate places. I recall an instance of her handing out Labor Party membership forms on a school visit. When the minister demonstrates such a poor lack of judgement personally it is not surprising that she has simply turned a blind eye to the use of a government Facebook page to promote Labor Party propaganda.
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