Page 4229 - Week 10 - Tuesday, 21 September 2010
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We see, for instance, in the Greens’ Molonglo document, that it states that ensuring that children are consulted and involved in urban design and planning is fundamental to being a child-friendly city. We are talking about children who are, presumably, eight-year-olds to 10-year-olds—that kind of age. It is implicit, I think, in this policy that the Greens do not trust parents to do their job. When the parents of an eight-year-old or a 10-year-old attend a community consultation about neighbourhood planning in their area, the Greens are effectively suggesting that the parents will not have the best interests of their children at heart—that, unless we can speak directly to that eight-year-old or that 10-year-old, we will not have urban design principles that actually are child friendly.
I reject that. I reject that as a parent. I reject that as a representative. I think that in the vast bulk of cases parents always seek to act in the best interests of their children. And they are tasked with the role of also making decisions on their behalf whilst they are very young. As I stated earlier, there is no doubt that, as children grow into young people and young adults, that gradually changes. There are certain decisions that young people, as they get older—as they move through their teenage years—are able to make, culminating in things such as drivers licences and then, of course, becoming an adult at the age of 18.
But the idea—which is implicit in the Greens’ policies and was reaffirmed by Ms Hunter in particular in her contribution—that parents are not going to do it, so we need to make sure that we go directly to the eight-year-olds and the 10-year-olds and the 12-year-olds on urban design, on health and on public transport, is one that I do not think is practical. I do think, more than that, implicit in it is the idea that parents will not do it. I have a better view of the parents of the ACT than the Greens do, it seems. I believe that they will, in conducting themselves and in engaging with these processes, act in the best interests of their children. Indeed, that is the task of parents, until their children are old enough to make decisions for themselves.
Ms Hunter criticised me for my comments, and I am happy to wear that, because I have a fundamental difference in approach. I do not accept this overall sort of “state as parent” type approach to things, which underlies what the Greens are saying.
I think it is also worth considering that the Greens are all very happy to claim that they want to consult with children and young people, but the children and young people of Flynn and Cook and Hall and Tharwa were pretty clear—in fact, they did contribute. They did contribute to those consultations. I saw the banners that some children were holding, saying, “Please do not close my school.” Of course, the Greens had the opportunity to respond to that. We gave them the opportunity. The votes were here in the Assembly, were they not, Mr Doszpot? The votes were here in the Assembly for the Greens to join us and to actually give those children back their schools and to give those communities back their schools. But the Greens chose to ignore that.
I wonder also whether the Greens consulted with the children and young people of non-government schools before they developed their policy to rip $60 million out of the ACT non-government system. I wonder what level of consultation there was with
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