Page 4166 - Week 10 - Wednesday, 21 September 2011
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My only concern really is that in paragraph (3) as it currently stands in Ms Hunter’s version—this is no reflection upon you, Mr Speaker—all that is required is for the Public Advocate to report to you, Mr Speaker; it does not require you to do anything with that report. I am not saying that you would sit on it, but to be absolutely clear I think that the words that were in the original motion, to “submit any and all reports directly to the Legislative Assembly”, are more appropriate. I propose to put those back in.
From the conversation that I had with Ms Hunter’s staff this morning, I think that the point raised by Ms Hunter about maintaining the confidentiality of people who may be named in that report is paramount—and the confidentiality of the organisation that brought these matters to light. I have made it very clear from the outset that this organisation is not the organisation that is being reviewed. The organisation that is being reviewed and the practices that are being reviewed are the care and protection group and its practices. We should do everything we can to protect the identity of the organisation.
I will take the opportunity to address the slanderous comments made by the minister about this matter on a number of occasions. We were asked to provide copies of correspondence. We considered it and we took particular pains. What actually happened, Mr Speaker—this is something that I shall have to write to you about, because there is a problem with the IT system that was brought about by this—was that my staff opened an electronic copy of the letter that we had written to Minister Burch and also copied to the Public Advocate and electronically blacked out all the bits, basically so that it would be neater than if you did it with a black texta. It was electronically blacked out. We used the saving provisions that we have for the CutePDF Writer that creates PDFs to create a PDF which was then sent electronically to a number of people. One of those organisations uploaded it into Cloudspace; in doing so, it seems that the electronic blacking out was removed. No-one can explain why, and I have not had a chance to make a serious inquiry.
I put on the record that my staff member who did this went to particular pains to ensure the anonymity of this organisation, at my direction. My staff member was mortified. He is a very experienced officer who has worked in the public arena for a very long time, and he was mortified by this. He did nothing wrong. The moment that we discovered that the steps that we had taken had been ineffective, we asked the organisation to take it down, we physically blacked it out and we physically created a PDF by a different version and gave them a substitute. It has not been up there for weeks. It was up for less than an hour on Wednesday last week. I cannot explain how this lapse came about, but there was no ill will in my office and I know that my staff and I were very apologetic to the organisation. We have done our best to ensure that the media did not report the name of this organisation because of this lapse.
The minister thinks that she has got me on the run on this, but the issues remain. The issues remain: her organisation oversaw, by her admission, what appear to be illegal placements in inappropriate accommodation. That is the issue at hand. If the minister wants to try and deflect this onto a very regrettable lapse, she can try. She can knock herself out, but the issues remain. She is the minister responsible not for a regrettable
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