Page 4215 - Week 11 - Wednesday, 24 October 2018
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Judging by Minister Berry’s amendment to paragraph 3, it sounds as if the report has not yet been discussed in cabinet in any depth. I would have thought that such discussion should be a high priority. The report is crystal clear. Kids who are witnessing and/or experiencing domestic and family violence are essentially invisible in the ACT’s domestic and family violence system. A clear commitment to improving the collection and use of data is needed to help fix this problem. The ACT is well placed, we are told, to be able to do so.
The recently announced provision of $100,000 to begin implementing recommendation 1 from the report is evidence that this government could act today if it wanted to. I am surprised that it does not see this opportunity as more of a priority. This is precisely the reason I moved this motion today: to get the government to commit to action as quickly as possible that will help remove the invisibility of the territory’s children and young people who are impacted by domestic and family violence.
These kids need rescuing at all levels, and they need it now. Our children are far too valuable and important for us to needlessly delay. I know that we have kids in Canberra who are suffering in silence, as I did when I was their age. They deserve to be seen in the official data so that we can offer them the service they need. Without this data, there will be more kids suffering in silence.
I acknowledge that the government will be reporting back to the Assembly on this matter no later than the end of June. I encourage the discussions needed to take place quickly so that we might have a response long before then, if possible.
Amendment agreed to.
Original question, as amended, resolved in the affirmative.
Adjournment
Motion (by Mr Gentleman) proposed:
That the Assembly do now adjourn.
Environment—climate change
MS LE COUTEUR (Murrumbidgee) (5.07): I draw the attention of the Assembly to a very important report put out on 8 October by the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. It looked at the situation and basically said that, although we have been aiming as a worldwide community for an upper maximum of two degrees for climate change, we really need to change our aim to 1.5 degrees Celsius because that half degree would make a huge difference by significantly reducing the risks of drought, floods, extreme heat and poverty for hundreds of millions of people. Going to 1.5 rather than two could possibly prevent corals from being completely eradicated and ease pressure on the Arctic.
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