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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2003 Week 10 Hansard (24 September) . . Page.. 3636 ..

MS TUCKER (continuing):

To pick up on something Mr Pratt said-he was suggesting that this is a real issue because, in many families, both parents are working-my understanding of the issue is that you can have dysfunctional communication in a dysfunctional family where neither parent is working, or where one parent is working and the other is not. It can be a cultural issue as well, where children are seen and not heard.

That is definitely a cultural issue with a number of ethnicities in Canberra. Recently, I have been working on Pacific youth. The culture there is very much about children listening and never speaking. Babies are held with their backs against the mother or father. The idea is that the child is always listening.

There are many issues which need to be taken into account when looking at this sort of question. It is much more complicated than whether or not parents work. That is a worrying statement.

The other issue is that many families will not need a contract at all, because they already have good communication. This is just one option, which I support, to stimulate discussion in families where communication is difficult. I think it is useful.

I refer to the part of the agreement which says that they agree to organise a form of transport-for example, come and collect you myself, send a taxi to pick you up, pay for a taxi, or provide a phone card-to get the child and/or their friends home, or to a safe place. That could be simply unworkable for some families, because it requires a family to have a car, or money to pay for a taxi. That is not a reality for a serious number of families in Canberra, particularly single parents who are on benefits, who are living on a couple of hundred dollars a week, if they are lucky.

It must be acknowledged that those issues are going to cause restrictions. That is an argument for having adequate night bus systems and so on where, if kids cannot find that sort of support from home, they can catch a bus. It is an interesting idea, but having this clause makes it a bit restrictive.

If a family does have a problem because of limited finances, that does not mean there is not a capacity for a conversation to occur, where a plan is made. Okay, the mum is not going to be able to pay for a taxi, or she does not have a car. Nevertheless, there could be a plan negotiated, as to what happens if the young person finds themselves in a dangerous situation. There is certainly room to move on that.

Mrs Cross said that this type of contract removes the fear of consequences from an angry parent. However, in the contract I have seen, that is only the case for the immediate circumstance. They are saying, "We will delay the discussion until later."I know that some kids would say, "Oh, right. I don't get yelled at on the night, but I'll be grounded next week, when we have an open and calm discussion!"So the consequences could still be there. That is an important point as well, as far as the effectiveness of this is concerned. Good faith will be needed.

I think it is really important that these sorts of ideas are given to kids to evaluate. From the web page, we obtained documentation on Warringah and the evaluation. Although

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