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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2002 Week 4 Hansard (11 April) . . Page.. 997 ..

MR CORBELL (Minister for Education, Youth and Family Affairs, Minister for Planning and Minister for Industrial Relations): Mr Speaker, I seek leave to speak.

Leave granted.

MR CORBELL: Mr Speaker, I wish to respond briefly to Ms Tucker's comments. This reference to the committee that Mr Hargreaves chairs is important. It is an important piece of work in highlighting the rights that young people have in the territory and the responsibilities that the territory has to protecting and providing for the well-being of children and young people in our community.

The terms of reference are very broad ranging, and a whole range of issues could potentially be looked at-everything from the statutory rights of young people through to issues around more aspirational aspects to do with the rights and the engaging of young people in the Canberra community. In that context, the government welcomes the inquiry and will be actively participating in it.

Ms Tucker raised a point about unanswered reports from the last Assembly. I didn't catch the second report Ms Tucker was referring to, but in relation to the report on young people-commonly known as "Young People at Risk"-the government will be preparing a response. In fact, that response to the report is just about complete, and I anticipate being in a position to table it in the next sitting of the Assembly.

Ms Tucker: Is that the children at risk of not completing education?

MR CORBELL: Children at risk of not completing satisfactory educational outcomes.

Ms Tucker: And the other one was services for children at risk.

MR CORBELL: Yes. The government at this stage is preparing a response to children at risk of not achieving satisfactory educational outcomes. I will certainly take the other matter on board and consider it further. But I thought it was important to respond to that report. The previous government failed to do that despite the fact that that was perhaps one of the most significant reports in terms of social policy delivered in the last Assembly. I think it is important that we respond to it and, as I have indicated, I anticipate that that response will be ready to be tabled at the next sitting.

Privilege

MR SPEAKER: Members, you will recall that on Tuesday I advised the Assembly of action I had taken to brief counsel to seek to appear on my behalf as amicus curiae in proceedings in the Supreme Court on that day. The proceedings were in relation to the board of inquiry into disability services. The basis of my action was to ensure that the court was apprised of the possible impact of section 16 of the Parliamentary Privileges Act 1987 on the proceedings and the potential of subsection 16 (3) of the act to limit the use of any material that constitutes "proceedings in parliament".

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