Page 3557 - Week 10 - Wednesday, 18 September 2019
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I bring this point up in light of the fact that, when debating Mrs Kikkert’s motion back in 2017, she said, “Let us not delay any longer.” Two years down the track, unfortunately, this process has dragged on and on. In April this year Mrs Kikkert asked the minister, on notice, if the review had been finished yet. The minister replied that it had not, but the public release of a long-promised discussion paper was imminent, and she acknowledged that “this time line does represent a delay”. That is newspeak.
Some significant things have happened in the months since then. The discussion paper has indeed been released and public consultation has been sought. We note with satisfaction that the ACT Human Rights Commission made a whole-of-commission submission in response to this discussion paper. Exactly as Mrs Kikkert did in 2017, they have explicitly called on the ACT government to recognise the necessity of external review. I quote from their submission:
The Commission considers that the provision of external merits review of child protection decisions … is necessary to uphold the rights of children and young people, and their families, and is essential for achieving full compliance with the ACT’s human rights obligations.
Internal merits review on its own is not sufficient to meet the requirements of the HR Act.
… the Commission considers that the broad discretionary framework … to make decisions about a child or young person’s care, combined with the lack of appropriate mechanisms to challenge and remedy such decisions, is incompatible with the HR Act.
In other words, Mr Assistant Speaker, unless we fix this situation, we are not human rights compliant, and we have not been since this act was adopted. I hope you can begin to understand now why Mrs Kikkert has continued to push this matter for more than two years.
Likewise I note with satisfaction that Dr Watchirs, of the Human Rights Commission, has recently supported the point made by Mrs Kikkert in 2017 about the ACT government being out of step with other states and territories, which point the minister felt the need to remove from the original 2017 motion. Speaking to local media on this topic just last week, Dr Watchirs said, “We must step into line with other jurisdictions and provide for external review of child protection decisions.” Indeed we must.
In light of the fact that this process has already gone on for too long and experienced too many delays for such an important matter, as well as the fact that the public consultation period closed nearly three months ago, it is time that we got an update. Mrs Kikkert’s motion today calls on Minister Stephen-Smith to provide that update to this Assembly before the last sitting day of the month. We need to know what has happened and what exactly still needs to happen, and we need to know when we can expect a final outcome.
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