Page 96 - Week 01 - Tuesday, 7 December 2004
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positions can be accused of being negative, carping, whinging. But our job is to be that oversight of the government, if you like. I think that, as Mr Hargreaves says—and I agree with him—we are on a new track. Of course existing members will remember in this place the Gallop report. Much, thankfully, has changed since then. I commend the government on those steps forward because, of course, it is crucial that we have in place a comprehensive and effective oversight of services in our city.
There has been debate in this place today regarding the input of the community at the level where they can feel they are having effective input. If Canberra’s vulnerable people feel that that has been taken away from them—with Mr Hargreaves’s logic and argument being put forward—we need to make sure that the broader community is quite aware that there will be avenues and vehicles through which they can direct their fears, their challenges and their suggestions.
I am concerned that, as we look around us at the many commissioners that we have now—and we seem to have a commissioner for just about everything and anything—going back to our role in this place, possibly we are now going to see those commissioners really starting to earn their keep if they do not do also already. I think that they do an excellent job out there.
I think that, whilst Dr Foskey has brought forward this matter—and the government has reassured us all as well—she obviously raises an issue for us all. We cannot become complacent and say that we believe, just because something new has started, that it is going to work and be effective. It does take others of us in this place to keep a watch on that.
I think Dr Foskey was concerned, too, about the commissioner for disability side, particularly that the role was too narrow in the ACT. I know that she made mention in her speech of the New South Wales model. I think that we cannot afford to be inward looking in the ACT. We have to think laterally; we have to act laterally. We have to make sure as well that we bring the community along with us. I think that the ACT disability services commissioner must be allowed to advocate as broadly as possible for Canberra’s vulnerable people; it is crucial.
I think that the concerns that Dr Foskey has—and I would like to talk to her more and hear more from the government on that, certainly to allay any fears that she and others in this place might have, especially new members—truly need to incorporate all the concerns of people in our community. There will need to be an all-embracing, broad approach to problems that arise from time to time. So I think that we should not just discard this matter today. I do commend Dr Foskey.
Again, I suppose, listening to Mr Hargreaves and to Dr Foskey—two slightly different viewpoints—it just might be that we do not have all the bases covered. We might not have covered all those things we think we do in regard to advocacy for people with a disability.
Mr Hargreaves also talked of overlaps in the roles of various commissioners in the ACT. That is one of my concerns: that we are going to become so heavy with commissioners for just about everything that there could be the possibility of overlap. But, again, that is also one to be concerned about in regard to people dropping through the gaps.
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