Page 1543 - Week 04 - Thursday, 25 March 2010

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process, Mrs Dunne, will commence in the next two months. The department met with the kinship carers representative group during 2009 to identify opportunities for
our office to provide support to this group and the carers that they represent, having regard to the valuable job that they do.

MR SPEAKER: A supplementary question, Mrs Dunne?

MRS DUNNE: Minister, did you mislead the Assembly in your answer of 17 November, and, considering I wrote to you about this a fortnight ago, why have you not corrected the record?

MS BURCH: I have been waiting in anticipation of her to ask it here rather than for me to reply. No, I have not misled the Assembly. As I have said, the procurement process is underway. That involves talking with the community. That involves talking with a diverse group of people that are doing a tremendous job. We have to try to ensure that the support structures actually hit the mark and support them, rather than overlay a system that does not offer and afford the support they need, which I think would be a failed process.

MR SPEAKER: Supplementary, Mr Seselja?

MR SESELJA: Minister, what measures are you taking to ensure communication and support for grandparents and kinship carers?

MS BURCH: The department does talk regularly and often with these groups. Throughout November and December, the department has met with the kinship carers representative group, which is now known as Grandparent and Kinship Carers ACT. They were progressing their incorporation. In December, shortly before the group became incorporated, the office spoke with them again, and the kinship representative groups, to progress detailed discussions regarding the possibility of an ongoing funding agreement. The agencies—the office and the support agencies—are in regular contact.

Members interjecting—

MR SPEAKER: Order, members! I am having trouble hearing Ms Burch.

Mrs Dunne: Point of order, Mr Speaker.

MR SPEAKER: Stop the clocks.

Mrs Dunne: Mr Seselja’s question—

Members interjecting—

MR SPEAKER: Order, members! Mrs Dunne has the floor.

Mrs Dunne: Mr Seselja’s question was not about kinship carers groups; it was about communication and support for individual grandparents and individual kinship carers.


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