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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2000 Week 11 Hansard (30 November) . . Page.. 3532 ..

MR STANHOPE (continuing):

forward to the resourcing that has produced that result continuing and perhaps being enhanced and those advantages being continued in other areas.

We need to concentrate on the level of abuse of illicit substances. This is a particular problem that only fairly recently has come to the attention of authorities in the ACT. In the indigenous population here, particularly the young indigenous population, we have a serious problem, a dramatic problem, in relation to the abuse of substances, particularly heroin. That is an area that requires a dramatic emergency responses that I am not quite sure we have yet put into place.

Concerns about substance abuse by indigenous people are very well reflected in this year's annual report of the Community Advocate, which gives very close detail of a recent study of the rates at which youth in the ACT are coming before the courts and are being referred to Quamby or elsewhere or are the subject of action taken within the criminal justice system. The rates reported by the Community Advocate in her annual report are truly dreadful.

At no time during last year's reporting period was the percentage of indigenous detainees at Quamby less then 50 per cent. That is from a base of 1 per cent of our population. For almost all of last year half of the detainees at Quamby were indigenous boys. That is an alarming statistic. It almost certainly indicates high levels of substance abuse and significantly high levels of associated crime. The other disturbing aspect of those statistics is that they are a sign that indigenous children have fallen out of school education, probably at a very young age. The schooling that we would hope they might have achieved has not been achieved.

On anecdotal evidence available to me, there is a significant truancy and drop-out problem with indigenous children. A large number of Aboriginal children, starting from the ages of 12 and 13, cease attending school by the time they have reached the first year of high school. That is reflected in the levels of crime, proportionately, that indigenous children are involved in and the extent to which they so disproportionately represent detainees at Quamby.

I will conclude my remarks by touching on a couple of the comments the Chief Minister made about the Australian Declaration Towards Reconciliation and the national strategies to advance reconciliation which are set out in the Road Map for Reconciliation. The Australian Declaration Towards Reconciliation sets out a number of tests of governments. The Chief Minister said that the ACT government, in its formal response to the Commonwealth, supports the spirit of the Australian declaration.

The words "supports the spirit" of course have a touch of ambiguity about them. The Chief Minister explains the ambiguity by reference to the fact that we await clarification of the meaning and intent of the Australian Declaration Towards Reconciliation. I understand the point he makes, but I think there is an issue here that we certainly, and I think the ACT community, want to take up. Exactly how broadly will the ACT government support this spirit of the Council for Aboriginal Reconciliation?

I heard the Chief Minister's explanation of the difficulties in commenting in detail or supporting absolutely a document that is yet to be fully defined or explained. I accept that, but the point needs to be made that the extent to which the ACT government does

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