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23 Aug 2005 Child Safety Legislation Amendment Bill 2629 account of many of the things that she has been saying for a good long time. I join the honourable member in recognising that the time is not too far away when we will surely see systems whereby indirect recycled potable water is part of our Queensland water supply. Of course, we have that already. Communities that take water from water sources downstream are using some water that has already been recycled through outfalls that are often further upstream. Doing this more deliberately and via a large body of water such as a dam will undoubtedly be necessary. I take this opportunity to also congratulate Mayor Di Thorley on her tremendous courage and absolute determination to ensure that residents of Toowoomba and the broader area will have a good potable water supply in the years to come, despite the predictions of a drier area due to climate change. She has been unreasonably criticised by many, rather than recognised for her courage and her leadership. As I bring this to a close, I thank all of those who have worked for quite a long time on this bill. A lot of detail needs to be addressed to balance the interests of local government and health and to, at the same time, make sure that the system is going to be workable and as affordable as it can be. I particularly thank the managing director of Building Codes Queensland in the department of local government and planning, Mr Ain Kuru. He has led this program and many other programs in the department. I thank him for his leadership, his determination and his good advice. On occasion he has even needed to redirect my thinking in an appropriate direction, as it were, when I have not been clear. Unfortunately, he has decided that now it is the time for change. He is moving to another position, still connected to local government but not in Building Codes Queensland. He will be sorely missed. I recognise his need for change, and I thank him. He has been a great asset to me as minister for local government over these last 15 months or more. I thank all others who have worked on the grey water systems and on the plumbing and drainage bill before the House tonight. The work of Local Government and Planning has been supplemented— value has been added—by the Environmental Protection Agency. This is another example of the benefits of having Local Government and Environment working together. I commend the bill to the House. Motion agreed to. Consideration in Detail Clauses 1 to 48, as read, agreed to. Bill read a third time. Third Reading CHILD SAFETY LEGISLATION AMENDMENT BILL Second Reading Resumed from 24 May (see p. 1568). Mrs MENKENS (Burdekin—NPA) (8.12 pm): I rise to present the opposition’s position in relation to the Child Safety Legislation Amendment Bill 2005. This bill before the House is the third tranche of legislation in response to the recommendations of the Crime and Misconduct Commission’s Protecting Children report. In commencing on this legislation, it is important to put the foster care report into perspective because this is a matter that the minister avoided in his second reading speech. I need to remind this House that the inquiry came about because of information released to the media by the Leader of the Opposition in 2003 which proved that foster-children had been suffering ongoing abuse with the knowledge of the department of family services over many years. It is important to realise that this information came to light despite the existence of the Commissioner for Children and Young People and Child Guardian and the provision of specific legislative provisions that were continually ignored by the then minister for families. The public record will show that the Premier and the minister resisted calling an inquiry until the evidence produced by the opposition and the media made that position untenable. I would also like to remind the House that the QPSU had also been warning the government that the department was failing because of case workers being inundated with files to the extent that the system became dysfunctional. Unfortunately, again, the minister at the time failed to respond to these concerns and continually refused to provide to this parliament information requested by the opposition regarding case loads. I regret to advise the House that, unfortunately, this is the same position now being taken by the current minister. I would refer those with a real interest in child safety and not spin to read the proceedings of Estimates Committee B.
2630 Child Safety Legislation Amendment Bill 23 Aug 2005 To overcome the deficiencies identified by the CMC, the Beattie government committed to implement the 110 recommendations of the CMC in line with the recommendations of the blueprint for implementation developed by Peter Forster. The legislation we are considering addresses the third-phase legislation which, in accordance with the Forster blueprint, is supposed to address recommendations 8.5 and 8.6, to refine the Indigenous child placement principle; 7.11 and 9.2, to address regulating voluntary placements; 8.11, dealing with consulting Indigenous agency stakeholders; and, finally, 7.1 and 9.2, regulating all carers. This legislation relates to four specific aspects of the child safety legislative regime. These are the regulation of voluntary placements, the regulation of all carers, consultation with Indigenous entities and refining the Indigenous child placement principle. The CMC made four recommendations for specific legislative changes; namely, recommendation 9.1 in relation to notifications, 9.2 in relation to the approval of individual carers, 9.3 to require case planning and, finally, 9.4 in relation to a report on implementation. Recommendations 9.1 and 9.3 have been addressed, to some degree, by previous amending legislation, and 9.2 is to be addressed in this bill, as I just indicated. Recommendation 9.4, which requires a legislative provision for a report on the implementation of this report to be provided to the CMC within two years of the report, has not been included in this legislation. As the minister has referred to this as being the final tranche of the legislation required by the inquiry report, the minister must tell the parliament why he is ignoring this quite specific recommendation of the commissioner. It will not be good enough for the minister to say that he is going to report anyway, because the commissioner has made a specific recommendation in this regard. He wanted to see quite specific recommendations for the same reason that the opposition does. That is, he obviously did not trust the government to do what it says, and nor should he. The whole protecting children inquiry would not have been necessary if this government could be trusted to do as it said. Therefore, I am indicating to the minister that I shall be moving an amendment to this bill which will give effect to recommendation 9.4 of the CMC report which the minister was happy to let fall through the cracks. The minister has frequently spoken about the need to fix the culture in the department that owes its genesis to previous administrations. As this House is aware, the destructive culture of the department was strongly criticised by the CMC. I simply make the observation that the way to fix the culture that continues to exist within the department is by honesty, openness and accountability and that the actions of the minister to gild the lily, to obfuscate and to avoid accountability only perpetuate the culture of deceit within the department. I believe that the minister is genuine in his concern for reform, so I take this opportunity to ask the minister to be more critical of the advice that he receives and to actually practise what we hear him telling us so often. The minister is well aware of the opposition’s concern that the department routinely uses privacy and other legislative restrictions to avoid accountability. I appreciate that this is a complex issue and that there is a genuine need to protect privacy and the identity of children in care. The problem for members of this parliament is that we are unable to represent the concerns of constituents who are engaged with the department. When we are asked by a constituent to raise concerns at their treatment by the department, we get the routine response that the department has been advised of the concerns and if the constituent wants further information they should contact the relevant person in the department. As the minister well knows, it is often the actions of that same relevant person that are the cause for concern in the first place. This is a classic catch-22. I hasten to add that I know these issues are often very complex and emotive and that there are at least—at least—two sides to a story, and often many sides to a story. However, when we, as local members, are never apprised of the other side of the story, what are we to do? I refer this issue to the minister because I believe that there should be a more open and accountable system. I believe that there has been a genuine attempt in this bill to redress some of the deficiencies and I shall refer later to that particular provision. As the minister well knows, during previous debates in this House about the earlier phases of this legislation, I raised concerns about the reporting arrangements regarding the monitoring role of the Commissioner for Children and Young People and Child Guardian, particularly as reports to the minister do not have to be reported to this parliament. One can only presume that this monitoring is occurring because, until an annual report is provided to this House, there is no way of knowing what is actually happening. I ask the minister to advise this House in his summation if he has actually received any reports from the commissioner in relation to issues identified by them. It is very instructive to look at the progress thus far in implementing the recommendations of the CMC report. The minister has claimed that 50 of the recommendations of the commission have been implemented thus far. The minister is very proud of this accomplishment and has been spending taxpayer funds to tell the world about it. Of course, as we have come to expect from this government, the truth is often entirely different. In reality, 87 of the recommendations are supposed to have been implemented to date. Is it any wonder that the legislative provision for reporting progress has apparently been conveniently omitted from this legislative package. Contrary to the picture painted by the minister in his second reading speech, the reforms in relation to child safety are not on track. The reality is that the reforms are behind schedule.
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2536 Papers 23 Aug 2005 PAPERS PAPE
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Page 69 and 70: 2600 Racing Venues Development Amen
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Page 101 and 102: 2632 Child Safety Legislation Amend
Page 111 and 112: 2642 Adjournment 23 Aug 2005 One pa
Page 113 and 114: 2644 Adjournment 23 Aug 2005 years.
Page 115: 2646 Adjournment 23 Aug 2005 Finall
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