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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1999 Week 11 Hansard (19 October) . . Page.. 3327 ..
Postponed clause, as amended, agreed to.
Postponed clauses 181 to 192, by leave, taken together and agreed to.
Ordered that clause 193 be postponed.
Proposed new clause 193A.
MR RUGENDYKE (6.02): Mr Speaker, I move:
Page 91, line 28, after clause 193, insert the following new clause in the Bill:
"193A Applications by other people
(1) If the chief executive has not made a care and protection application in relation to a child or young person, a person may, after consultation with the chief executive, seek the leave of the court to make an application in relation to the child or young person.
(2) The court must hear the person and the chief executive and may make an order granting leave to the person to make the application.
(3) If an application is made with the court's leave, a copy of it must be served on the chief executive and the community advocate and each may appear and be heard in the proceeding.".
This amendment, Mr Speaker, my new section 193A, enables a person to seek leave of the court to make an application in relation to the child or young person. It obliges the court to hear the person. If an application is made with the court's leave, a copy of it must be served on the chief executive and the Community Advocate and each may appear to be heard in the proceeding in that case.
MS TUCKER (6.03): We are not voting against it, but I do want to get on the record some concerns that have come to our office. The argument against this is that decisions affecting care agreements, orders, et cetera, should only be decisions between the state, the child and his/her parents. There is concern that you start getting other people having that role - a busybody element. This is in the current Act and it was not going to be in this Act and Mr Rugendyke is putting it back.
I did raise it as an issue at the round table. I did not understand why the Government had decided to take it out and why they are not happy to put it back in through Mr Rugendyke's amendment. There needs to be a watching brief on that because there are some fundamental issues about children and their birth parents. We would hate to see a situation arise where other people were able to intrude on these situations in an
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