Page 1728 - Week 06 - Thursday, 30 July 2020
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We have had some pilots of family group conferencing in the ACT, and those involved in it in the ACT have demonstrated just how fruitful it can be. I am very proud that my colleagues Mrs Kikkert and Mr Coe have also just recently made statements about their intent in the Tenth Assembly to ensure that family group conferencing becomes a legal entitlement for all children and their families in the ACT.
There is much in this report. Ms Cody has given a very eloquent outline of what is there. But I think one of the other things which is important and which occupies my mind and, I suspect, Ms Le Couteur’s mind to some extent, is that we are fast approaching the end of the Ninth Assembly and it will not be possible, within the timetable of the government, to even respond to this inquiry before the last sitting day of the Assembly. So we have, as a committee, definitely made the point that we believe that this is unfinished business and this unfinished business must be taken up by the next Assembly.
We have taken a slightly unusual approach at pages 103 and 104, in what we have styled an epilogue, which is to pass the baton to the next Assembly to ensure that the important work that was done in this inquiry and the inquiry into part 1, which is not quite concluded, is picked up and carried on by whoever is the minister for children and young people. There is a specific recommendation in relation to that, which is recommendation 44, which I think has an important place because it does not just say “pick it up in the next Assembly”; it also creates a mechanism whereby this can be picked up.
The minister for children and young people has the capacity, under part 2.2 of the Children and Young People Act to constitute a children and youth services council for any purpose, for a brief period. I think that an appropriately constituted children and youth services council would be an outstanding mechanism for ensuring that the important work that this committee has done with the community is concluded in the Tenth Assembly.
MS LE COUTEUR (Murrumbidgee) (11.59): I want very much to echo my fellow committee members in thanking the contributors. I also thank my fellow committee members, Ms Cody and Mrs Dunne, and our brilliant committee secretary, Dr Andréa Cullen.
I was very conscious during this inquiry that I and my fellow committee members, all of whom are mothers, were not very likely to become involved in the CYP system. We are white and we are well off. The CYP system would just assume that we are capable parents and that any issues we may have with our children would be solvable. The idea of removal would not be on the agenda. This point was explicitly commented on in the discussion of the removal of newborn babies from their mothers. Karen Toohey, the Discrimination, Health Services, Disability and Community Services Commissioner, said:
The first experience that that parent has is of child protection coming to talk to them, and that whole initial bonding period has actually been completely
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