Page 86 - Week 01 - Tuesday, 10 February 2015

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The problems are exacerbated by the broader systemic deficiencies within the care and protection service.

It became clear that the hardworking and dedicated front-line staff in care and protection continued to battle against a system that failed to support them, despite their very best efforts on a day-to-day basis.

Minister Burch promised to fix the care and protection service. One could mistakenly believe that things were going to get better. But that was not the case. March 2013 saw the release of the Auditor-General’s report into Care and Protection Services. The Auditor-General stated that the records kept by Care and Protection Services were poor, inaccurate and out of date. In fact, it came to light that some children who were put in long-term care by Care and Protection Services will potentially never receive a visit from a caseworker.

We are also aware, through media reports, of tragic cases where young children lost their lives due to the failure of authorities to act. These stories show that the statistics are more than just numbers; they involve real lives of vulnerable children. And I have not mentioned yet the failings in Care and Protection Services which left vulnerable children in homes with no heating and with broken glass.

I would like to speak very briefly about the recent Tharwa Drive road closure “chaos”, to use Minister Burch’s own word. Tharwa Road is one of the oldest roads in the area. The Queanbeyan Age of 2 September 1869 carried a report of a large meeting of passionate residents opposed to moving the road, which had then existed for at least 31 years. For those who spent three or four hours a day commuting and sitting in traffic during the closure of Tharwa Drive in January, it must have seemed like it was still 1869.

To close the four lanes of Tharwa Drive was negligent and dangerous. Woodcock Drive was never intended as a major traffic route. To block all but one road in and out of Gordon, Banks and Conder not only caused major inconvenience but would have presented major problems during a bushfire or similar emergency.

I was contacted by many constituents, a number of whom derived no joy from the two-line responses they received from members of the executive. One constituent was moved to write a very clever poem called No Joy for Lanyon, to the tune of the Beastie Boys’ No Sleep Till Brooklyn. I am happy to provide copies, if anyone would like one. Almost all correspondence mentioned the need to link Conder with the Monaro Highway as an essential second way of exit from the Lanyon valley, both for occasions like this and, more importantly, for emergency evacuations.

I have reports of people missing non-refundable flights despite leaving home 2½ hours before their flight was due to depart, missing specialists’ appointments for which they had waited six months and still had to pay, and lost earnings by small business owners who could not open on time. These are all costs to individuals, businesses and the community that the minister did not seem to care about. She then tried to blame the Tuggeranong Community Council and their president, Eric Traise.


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