Page 3186 - Week 07 - Thursday, 1 July 2010
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impairment in a way that allows them to live up to their human potential so they can really maximise what they have got and to extend justice to everybody, regardless of their ethnicity and place of origin, and to do this respectfully. I think that Mr Doszpot does that on both counts.
That is in stark contrast to the minister. Of all the ministers we have seen in the ACT Assembly she is probably the least qualified and the least capable of delivering on these two portfolio areas, and I will speak to those specifically. We have seen in her performance, both in the chamber and outside of the chamber, an absolute inability to advocate effectively on behalf of her constituents—that is, the disabled people of the ACT and people from a multicultural background.
ACT Labor, as it is moving forward, and the government—you can see it in this budget—have taken the focus away from people, people with disabilities and people in a multicultural society, and put the focus on infrastructure, spending money on infrastructure, legacy projects and pet projects. This is a government that has become self-interested rather than interested in the people of Canberra and the most important people in Canberra that need looking after—those with a disability.
When I say that I think the minister is incapable of dealing with her portfolio effectively, I can go to a number of examples. One that I think has been evident has been her inability to understand that disability is an issue that cuts across portfolios. It does not just reside within her department. We have seen people falling through the cracks and we have seen organisations falling through the cracks.
Karen Costello is a wonderful example of that inability—and I think that the blame rests with the health minister as well—to pick up where people have fallen between portfolios. We have seen it with her department and the education department as well. It was evident earlier in the year with her lack of understanding of the Shaddock report, the implications it had for people with disabilities in the school system and her basic lack of attention to that report and what was going on within schools. It may have been within DET, but that does not mean that she, as a minister, should not have taken significant interest and responsibility.
We saw last week in relation to the Shepherd Centre and Noah’s Ark—a tender process that was occurring and priorities that were informed by the Future directions: towards challenge 2014 report—that she clearly had not done her homework. She confidently challenged Mr Doszpot, saying:
I challenge the assumption of Mr Doszpot’s motion that this is due to reallocation of funding by this government. Let us be quite clear, this issue has come about due to the cessation of funding by the commonwealth and not as a result of reallocation of funds by this government.
Mr Doszpot’s assumptions, I think, were correct. The opposition’s assumptions were correct. This was confirmed throughout estimates in a question on notice that was answered by Mr Barr. Even as late as yesterday, Ms Burch was adamant that she did not sign a question on notice about this reallocation of funding, but that is a moot issue. The fact is that, although this was a matter involving DET, Ms Burch made a statement without doing her homework. She has shown, in her inability to engage with the community—
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