Page 1352 - Week 05 - Wednesday, 12 May 1993
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Aboriginal community groups in the ACT are notified immediately so that a prisoner's friend, as it were, can attend the police station and make representations on behalf of the person who has been arrested. This Assembly, some six months ago, passed a Bail Act which further clarifies the right of every person to have bail.
When we last had a survey or a census of ACT prisoners, that is, persons who had been sentenced, we were surprised to find that there was no person of Aboriginal origin among serving prisoners, so the problem, to the extent that there is a problem here, seems to focus on persons in police custody. An overrepresentation of 4.4 is too high, although it is amongst the lowest in the country and is well below the national level of overrepresentation of 26.2; but the ACT can take some pride in the fact that, whereas the national average level of overrepresentation has declined only a small amount - that is something that as a nation we need to address - in the ACT we have more than halved the level of overrepresentation. Ms Szuty raises a very serious point. Clearly we need to do more, but I hope that Ms Szuty would accept that some of the initiatives that have been implemented over the last couple of years at least have us moving in the right direction at a fairly rapid pace.
School Closures
MS ELLIS: My question is directed to the Minister for Education. Is there any suggestion that school closures are back on the agenda now that the Auditor-General is reviewing the finances of the Education Department?
MR WOOD: Madam Speaker, there certainly is not any suggestion that school closures are back on the agenda because of a routine Auditor-General review. I think one of the television stations in particular last night tried to draw some conclusions as a story that is fairly routine was beefed up. It is proper that the Auditor-General investigate agencies. I have not seen a story, for example, that the Auditor-General is carrying out a review of the land development program, which is happening. I think he is having a look at the health program.
These are normal processes for the Auditor-General. It is his task to scrutinise the way our money is expended, to look at the quality of management and accountability in the public sector, and certainly we would be looking, as an outcome, for improved ways of doing things. I think in part of the debate yesterday it was indicated that in the four years of self-government there had been very considerable improvements in the way that things were done. It is part of the Auditor-General's job to do this. I think it is quite wrong to draw the conclusion, as some did, that school closures are on the agenda. The Government sets the agenda in this matter and there is no plan from the Government to close schools. We have been quite clear and emphatic on that, as the Chief Minister was in the adjournment debate last night. That continues, and I want to add to that emphasis.
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