Page 4559 - Week 11 - Tuesday, 18 October 2011
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a five to 10-year reform strategy with the ACT youth justice system. However, overcoming these challenges is part of the task ahead.
It is in this context that I want to take this opportunity to echo the sentiment in the HRC report and to reflect on the value that a tripartisan evidence-based approach to youth justice would offer not only children and young people but the ACT community in general. We know the negative impact of politicisation of issues pertaining to youth justice in other jurisdictions on outcomes for children and young people, their families and their communities.
I look forward to working closely with the task force as it begins the next important part of developing the blueprint for youth justice in the ACT. I look forward in time to bringing that blueprint to the Assembly once it is complete.
Mrs Dunne: Mr Speaker, if the minister is not going to move that the report be noted, could I seek leave to make a brief statement?
MS BURCH: I move:
That the report be noted.
MRS DUNNE (Ginninderra) (4.00): I thank the minister for this government response to the Human Rights Commission report, and the Canberra Liberals will be studying it closely.
There are a couple of issues that arise in the comments that are worth noting. I notice that on page 7 of the minister’s statement—she did not utter the sentence—it says:
Literacy tutors who work intensively with students have been brought in.
That is to the Bimberi youth justice system. I hope that that was a slip of the tongue and a slip in the reading and not a sign that the minister is uncomfortable about the extent to which there are literacy tutors working effectively in the Bimberi youth justice system. This will be an issue that I will be pursuing.
The minister’s statement on page 7 also reads:
Significantly … a Deputy Principal has been appointed to lead the Murrumbidgee Education and Training Centre. Support from the Education and Training Directorate for teaching staff has improved markedly as a result.
I think it is a searing indictment of the youth justice system and the operation of the Murrumbidgee education centre that we have to make a comment that now we have seen some improvement in the support for teaching staff who work under very difficult conditions at the Murrumbidgee education centre. I would like at some stage for the minister to expand upon how and in what ways education and training support has increased for staff and what effect that has had so far on the young people at the Murrumbidgee education centre; also what are the expectations and what measures the government will have to measure the improvement in performance of the Murrumbidgee education centre and the improved performance of educational outcomes of the young people who attend the Murrumbidgee education centre.
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