Page 12 - Week 01 - Tuesday, 25 February 2014
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Let us go to some of the other comments that you have made. You mentioned breaches of law. I find it quite extraordinary that you continue to say in here that there were breaches of law. Yes, the Public Advocate’s report made comment. But the chief government solicitor said that there was no breach. The Public Advocate is on public record as accepting that advice. The only ones who want to hang on to ill-informed history are the Canberra Liberals. Let us make no mistake: there was no breach of the law, and that has been confirmed through the GSO. If you want to continue to harangue over that, that is all for your own negative purpose.
You make comment around Bimberi. If you have not had a look at the youth justice blueprint that sets a path for the community over the next 10 years in this, you should look at it. You would see that that is a very significant piece of work. The benefits of the reforms and the changes I have made within youth justice and in Bimberi are having an effect. I have stood in this place, in response to a question in question time, outlining the absolute clear reduction in the number of detainees, the reduction in the number of young people held in remand, and the significant reduction—I think it is 40 per cent—of Aboriginal young people in remand under the reforms that I have put in.
Again, go to your mark. It is a test. It is a test about what you do to improve programs. I will stand by my record in youth justice.
Mr Hanson interjecting—
MADAM SPEAKER: Order, Mr Hanson!
MS BURCH: I will stand by my record in youth justice that, through the blueprint and through the reforms that I have put in place at Bimberi, the young people of this city are reaping the benefit. They are supported through youth justice. They are supported to get education and training opportunities that were not there before.
Let us go to care and protection. Absolutely I have stood in this place and had the Auditor-General and the Public Advocate go through our care and protection study. But look to every other state. Look to every other state that has a critical and forensic review of their care and protection system. What do you see? You see reports that highlight areas of improvement. We are no different. We are no different from any other state. Look to Queensland. Look to Victoria. Look to New South Wales. Care and protection is a tough business. I encourage you to get a better understanding that it is not black and white. This is core human decisions of a human service. Yes, we have had that report. Some of it was a bit hard. But again, go to your comment. It is a test about how you react. What did we do? We put in significant reforms. Again, the Public Advocate has been on record as saying that those reforms have made a difference, that there has been success.
Let me go back to Bimberi and the Children and Young People Commissioner’s review of that. The commissioner has recently written to CSD indicating that reforms underway meet all expectations. You had a report from the Human Rights Commission outlining improvements that needed to be made. Here we are, two or three years down the track, and what does the commission say? It says that it meets all
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