Page 2363 - Week 08 - Tuesday, 12 August 2014
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With regard to youth justice and the Bimberi detention centre, the minister is always quick to ignore the issues that sometimes may exist. We only need to hark back to her ear-covering—the la-la-la moment—that occurred some years ago, and I fear that this budget and the estimates process have been no exception to that attitude. Nonetheless, I believe it is safe to say that the problems relating to security of staff, detainees, contraband and the overall administration of the AMC are reflected at the Bimberi detention centre. We know drugs and drug-related crime are the main reasons people are incarcerated in the ACT, yet I am yet to be convinced that enough resources are being directed to rehabilitation at all levels. (Second speaking period taken.)
As is usual with this budget line item, there is a lot of chest beating, pats on the back, and the government talking about what they want to talk about and highlighting what they want to highlight. I assure the Assembly that I will continue to highlight things that are not necessarily working well, the failures of the minister and the failings of the government as a whole. It is important to achieve good outcomes to give the youth of the ACT the best opportunities and the best start in life we possibly can, and I will continue to hold this government to account in their failings.
DR BOURKE (Ginninderra) (5.55): I will briefly mention two initiatives for Canberra’s Indigenous community receiving a boost this year, including $1.4 million over four years to build and maintain five units specifically to meet the housing needs of older Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander tenants. This includes $93,000 in recurrent funding to be met from within existing resources. The work will be developed in consultation with the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander community and organisations. Secondly, the Canberra office of the Aboriginal Legal Service New South Wales/ACT will be funded to undertake a duty lawyer role in the ACT courts with an additional $416, 000 over four years.
The ACT government’s commitment to working with Canberra’s Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander community and the elected body is in stark contrast to the federal government’s approach in their federal budget. The federal government not only cut half a billion dollars from the Indigenous programs, but it ceased funding completely for the National Congress of Australia’s First Peoples, the only independent national representative body for the community. The Prime Minister, it seems, only wants to listen to his hand-picked advisers and ignore the voices of the people. I commend this fair and responsible budget to the Assembly and congratulate all who worked on it.
MS LAWDER (Brindabella) (5.56): As the shadow minister for family and community services, I will make a few comments, firstly, about service delivery in the Community Services Directorate and also about Care and Protection Services. Throughout estimates, when talking about community services there was a lot of talk about the human services blueprint. No matter what aspect of CSD we talked about, there was the human services blueprint—that it will be developed, is developed and will fix all of the problems. Over the forward estimates $1.78 million is being spent on the human services blueprint, as well as the better human services strengthening families program. We will not really know until this work is complete how much of a benefit it will provide.
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