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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 12 Hansard (13 November) . . Page.. 4142 ..

MRS LITTLEWOOD (continuing):

The list goes on. A women's health strategic plan is being developed to address women's health needs, and a men's health strategic plan is under way. We have a whole-of-Territory disability services plan, and we are developing a palliative care strategy to develop services and programs for palliative care clients and their families in the ACT. To address longer-term issues in health, a 10-year service plan is being developed to guide the development of health services and infrastructure for the next 10 years. This is genuine social planning.

MS REILLY (5.17): I rise to say a few words on this matter, but before I start let me look around the house and see how many people are here. We are talking about important social matters - not money and not economics, but the social wellbeing of the people in the ACT - and not a lot of people seem to be terribly interested.

Mr Humphries: Let us censure the ones who are not here.

MS REILLY: Grow up, Mr Humphries. Mrs Littlewood talks about various programs. It was a list. She called it a list. All it was was a list of what is happening. I think this puts in a nutshell what the issue Ms Tucker has raised is about. We are not talking about an integration of programs. We are not talking about programs that might be responding to a whole-of-government or whole-of-community process. We have a list of programs, a fragmented approach to social policy in the ACT, and that has been typical of this Government. This is characteristic of this current ACT Liberal Government. We get a list of programs, none of which seems to be coordinated with, or connected to, the others.

Mrs Littlewood mentioned consultation. That has been an exciting process! We regularly hear from the Chief Minister about how many consultations are going on, but there is no coordination of these consultations. Some organisations find themselves being consulted on matters by a number of different departments and agencies that have no apparent understanding that another department or agency has consulted on the same matters. There does not seem to be any understanding that social policy can cover a broad range of areas. It does not deal with just social matters. It also deals with social and physical infrastructure. But this Government has a list and they are working from the list. We saw a great example earlier this afternoon. The Housing Minister has a list for maintenance, but that is not helping ACT Housing tenants access maintenance. People have to wait for years. That does not suggest good social policy. It does not suggest any integration of programs at all when you have old people waiting to get their roofs fixed, waiting until Christmas comes - but no mention of which Christmas.

Three years ago we had a social policy branch within the Chief Minister's Department. That branch had a responsibility to coordinate and take a whole-of-government approach to social planning in the ACT. This meant that the Government was taking a strategic look at the development of a just and fair community. The Chief Minister of that time, Rosemary Follett, recognised the importance of having a coordinating role in social planning and she included that in the Chief Minister's Department. There is no such thing in the current Chief Minister's Department. It has moved all round the place. It has become little pieces here and there, with no coordination at all. One hand often does not know what the other hand is doing.

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