Page 3576 - Week 12 - Wednesday, 12 October 1994
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ABORIGINAL DEATHS IN CUSTODY - ROYAL COMMISSION
1992-93 Implementation Report
Debate resumed from 22 September 1994, on motion by Ms Follett:
That the Assembly takes note of the paper.
MR KAINE (5.12): This is a continuation of the debate in connection with the Government's first implementation report concerning matters arising from the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody. It deals with the year 1992-93, but was tabled in this Assembly on only 16 June this year. Madam Speaker, the Chief Minister's last words in the chamber about the Government's first report on the implementation of the recommendations of the royal commission were, I would suggest, a skilful bit of weasel-wording. The Chief Minister did not table the report covering the year 1992-93 until 16 June. That was two years, two months and one week after she tabled the ACT's policy response to those recommendations, or, to put it differently, a year after the end of the period which the report covers. When she told the Assembly that the tabling of this report was a milestone in the process of redressing the disadvantage suffered by Aboriginal peoples and Torres Strait Islanders, I am confident that she felt embarrassed that she did not also say, "and about time too".
The first substantive remark I want to make about this report is that I hope that we get the next one in the series rather more quickly. It does surprise me that the Chief Minister's office got around to asking Territory agencies to provide input for the 1993-94 report on implementation of the recommendations only early in September, three months after the year to which it relates. I should have expected an administration with its eye on the ball to have asked agencies very early in June to provide input for incorporation in an annual report as wide-ranging and as important to the community as this one. It is called coordination.
In the normal way of things a topic with a key word like "Aboriginal" should, I would have thought, have been pretty near the head of the list. It was only yesterday that we talked about the Native Title Bill and the Chief Minister told us how important she thought the Aboriginals in our community were. I gather that the Government expects agencies to submit input for the next report by the end of 1994. I asked the Deputy Chief Minister some questions on this matter today, and I am waiting with interest to see what the Chief Minister tells us, presumably when she answers those questions tomorrow. To submit information by the end of 1994 for a period that ends in June 1994, I think, indicates the degree of priority that the Chief Minister is giving to this matter. Add a couple of months to draft the report, a couple more to clear it around the agencies and a few to get it cleared through the Cabinet, and 1995-96 will be well along before we get the report for 1993-94. I must say that I am less than impressed, and so too, I am certain, are our Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander citizens, some of whom have been to me asking me when the Government intends to do something about this report. I presume that they have also knocked on the Chief Minister's door.
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