Page 3567 - Week 10 - Wednesday, 18 September 2019
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young people’s experiences, the listening and learning project will provide a new knowledge base to improve the ACT service system’s capacity to respond to children and young people’s needs. What we learn will be shared across government and the non-government sector.
I commend the motion and I also commend and support the amendments that have been brought to the Assembly by the minister for children and young people. I thank the Assembly for discussing this important matter today.
MRS DUNNE (Ginninderra) (3.48): I thank those members who have spoken in support of the intent of this motion. In closing, I wish to address the amendments put forward by Minister Stephen-Smith. Firstly, I thank the minister for informing the Assembly that submissions will be made public. I welcome both this decision and its inclusion in this motion. This is an appropriate act of openness.
Secondly, I want to thank the minister for providing us with an update, at least in part today, as the motion called for. I understand that more information will come in the future, and I look forward to that as well. I also welcome the introduction of a date for the reporting of an outcome in six months time. I acknowledge what the minister has said about not being able to compel the completion of a review that, although it sits in her portfolio, is being chaired by the Justice and Community Safety Directorate.
I therefore take this opportunity to put the Attorney-General, Mr Ramsay, on notice. This review process has already gone on for too long, and I expect him to do whatever is in his power to make sure that the final outcome can genuinely be reported to the Assembly in March. There is still much to do, including amending current acts to align with the recommendations of the report. I do not want to see this matter pushed out beyond the election. The way that it has been handled so far means that that could well be the case.
It is an embarrassment that this government require another motion to get them to do this important work. Evidence suggests that we cannot trust the Barr government to prioritise the needs of vulnerable children. Children and young people, and their families, in the ACT have already waited for too long for this important mechanism of external review. I commend this motion to the Assembly and thank members for their participation.
Amendments agreed to.
Original question, as amended, resolved in the affirmative.
Forestry—sustainable products
MS CODY (Murrumbidgee) (3.52): I move:
That this Assembly:
(1) notes:
(a) forests have a major contribution to make in helping meet Australia’s commitment to limit global warming to two degrees or less;
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