Page 1458 - Week 04 - Wednesday, 6 April 2011
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justice. This is what we should be striving to achieve. Although I commend Ms Hunter for bringing this motion into the Assembly today for debate, the basis of what the Greens are calling on the government to do lacks rigour and so may not live up to the promise they have made to the disability community.
In addition to ensuring that the disability community gets the best deal possible, there is also the need to ensure that there is sufficient transparency so that all involved understand the options and the financial implications. Although we accept Ms Burch’s amendments, we feel that greater emphasis needs to be placed on providing a detailed costing of the options available in providing after-school care.
In the spirit of recommendation 4 of the Love has its limits report, without a strong commitment to transparency the disability community will again be stuck in a miasma of government paternalism, where DHCS and the minister know best. As already outlined above, any new initiative along the lines this motion proposes needs to empower affected families. Our disability community deserve better than this and we owe it to them. We can do better, but it needs to be carried out on sound principles.
I now submit the amendment circulated in my name, which is an addition to Ms Burch’s amendment. I move:
Add new paragraph (3):
“(3) provide the Assembly with detailed costings with a view to providing afterschool care at ACT special schools as per Recommendation 4 of the Standing Committee on Health, Community and Social Services’ Love Has Its Limits—Respite Care Services in the ACT report by the last sitting day in May.”.
Thank you, Madam Assistant Speaker.
MS HUNTER (Ginninderra—Parliamentary Convenor, ACT Greens) (3.57): I will speak to Mr Doszpot’s amendment first. We will not be supporting Mr Doszpot’s amendment. I think it is extremely disappointing that the motivation of the Canberra Liberals seems to be to play politics rather than support families in need here in the ACT. Despite chairing the “Love has its limits” inquiry, Mr Doszpot is unable to support an implementation date on the motion that I have put forward.
There have been a number of negotiations, obviously, between offices today. Mr Doszpot did want an amendment to go forward about detailed costings being available by May, and I believe this was really all about fitting in with estimates, but would not come at part of my motion which talked about a starting date, having some commitment to some action taking place. At the end of the day it really is hollow and empty if we do not take action. That is what we need to do.
This idea of a business case and that this has to stack up in some way to be profitable of course is a nonsense. What government does is to sit down, look at the needs and make decisions based on priorities. Governments make these decisions every day, and in this case we should be seeing this as a priority. It is a priority need for many families across the ACT. I spoke about 1,995 students in our special schools. That is a lot of families out there who need some assistance. Not all of them will want the
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