Page 233 - Week 01 - Wednesday, 16 February 2011
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video
presented to the Assembly in August last year, almost seven months ago. It is very disappointing that we have to deal with this bill in this way. There has been general agreement between the parties that we would agree to this bill in principle today and that we would basically establish a round table to sort out the differences that people have over some of the amendments. I will talk about some of those in a moment.
In sum, I really think that this matter has been dealt with in a pretty shambolic way. I think that perhaps we would have solved the problem if perhaps Ms Hunter had done, what the Greens have done on a number of occasions with stuff which is considerably new policy of introducing an exposure draft. Some of these issues could have been sorted out at that stage.
That said, I still think that the blame for us not resolving this today lies squarely with the minister more than anybody else. I know that this will be debated in the detail stage, but I want to put on record the Canberra Liberals’ firm commitment that this child death review panel should be thorough and should take into account all relevant issues.
I know that the government is very keen to avoid any reference in the work of the child death review panel to children who are in the care of the chief executive. They do not want them to be talked about in any way or for that subject to be brought up. I think that it shows the sensitivity of the minister and the department in this area. I put on the record now that the Canberra Liberals will not support any watering down of the provisions of the legislation in that regard.
We believe that children who are known to the chief executive are children who are perhaps more substantially at risk than others. That needs to be identified and if there are systemic patterns there we need to make it possible for them to be identified. I think that the approach from the government will water that down.
That said, in general I believe that this bill is an important bill. That is a view shared by my colleagues. It is one on the long list of responsibilities that we as a community have to our children and young people—to create a future, which I referred to at the outset. This is one step to improving that future for our young people. We should learn from the deaths in the past. Because of this, the Canberra Liberals will be supporting this bill.
MS HUNTER (Ginninderra—Parliamentary Convenor, ACT Greens) (6.05), in reply: I thank members for their contributions to this important debate. On a daily basis we are reminded of the tragedy that exists in our community when a child or young person dies.
The Child Youth Death Review Committee is well recognised and universally accepted as a positive initiative with the potential to save lives. I outlined in my tabling speech in August last year that the Child and Young People Death Review Committee within an Australian context aims to identify strengths and weaknesses in system responses for the benefit of future prevention and action. Child death review teams do not operate to determine the culpability of alleged offenders or comment on the individual performance of people, nor do they investigate the causes of child deaths. That role is left to the police and coroner or other territory processes.
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video