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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2000 Week 6 Hansard (25 May) . . Page.. 1833 ..
Procedures for emergency detention, dated May 2000, together with Attachments A and B.
MR MOORE (Minister for Health and Community Care): For the information of members, I present the following paper:
Abuse-A Community Responsibility-A report commissioned by the ACT Disability Services Advisory Committee for the Commonwealth and ACT Governments, dated 1998.
I ask for leave to make a statement on this report.
Leave granted.
MR MOORE: I thank members. I am pleased to table in the Legislative Assembly the Disability Services Advisory Committee report entitled Abuse-A Community Responsibility. This report was produced at the request of the Disability Services Advisory Committee (DSAC) in 1998 under the guidance of a steering committee comprising DSAC members and others. Mr Speaker, this was something I agreed to do in response to the report from the Health and Community Care Committee.
The report was not finalised or endorsed within the term of the previous committee. DSAC has now been replaced by the Disability Advisory Council which was appointed last year. The report was withheld as it had not been endorsed by DSAC and we had also received legal advice which indicated that allegations in the report could result in defamation action against a range of people, including the report's authors, the committee and the government. I have since sought further legal advice and I am now pleased to be able to table this report in the Assembly, with minor deletions as indicated. These deletions are three anecdotes of abuse which were not substantiated by a process of investigation.
While the report has not been endorsed by DSAC, I believe it provides a genuine and constructive discussion of factors which contribute to abuse and, more importantly, how these may be addressed in the ACT context. While I am concerned at specific allegations of abuse, it is more important that incidents are properly investigated to establish the circumstances of the event and an appropriate response, both relating to the event and improving the service system to ensure it does not recur. Indeed, many of the recommendations of the report focus on this process. The Health and Community Care Complaints Commissioner has a formal procedure for investigation of such incidents.
I would also like to mention some of the developments which have occurred since 1998. As recommended by the DSAC report, the department is working to add an additional standard to its purchase agreement, with services supporting people with disabilities. Agencies are currently required to comply and report against eight standards. An additional proposed standard will read:
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