Philip Ruddock (Berowra, Liberal Party, Attorney-General) Share this | Hansard source

No. Rather, it is associated with maintaining a good relationship with our neighbours, Indonesia, and leading a delegation of legal service providers to China, which is a longstanding engagement that I have in the first week of July. Not that I should feel any diffidence about that—I am keen to be associated with what will be a very successful program.

The fact is that the establishment of the first 15 family relationship centres is well advanced. I am surprised at how the honourable member has wanted to reflect upon the professionalism of the staff who have been engaged very conscientiously in this task of ensuring that we are ready to go. And, I must say, I am one who expected initially that it might be a phased introduction, given the timetable that we were asking them to implement. When I am able to say on the advice given to me that the first 15 are well advanced, that the operators of the centres are recruiting staff, organising their premises, commencing fit-out and on track to being able to be open on 3 July, I will.

I have personally visited the centre, for instance, in Lismore in northern New South Wales—the electorate of my colleague Mr Causley. I saw the way in which it was progressing and I saw those who had won the tender or the expression of interest. I am aware that all of the providers have been given final funding agreements and that there are no impediments to their signing those agreements, as all relevant issues have been addressed. The specific information is that 14 of the 15 have signed. The only one that is outstanding at the moment is Townsville, because there were variations that needed to be concluded to take into account the impact of Cyclone Larry. That impact suggested that they would need some supplementation as a result, and that had to be incorporated into the agreement. That seems to me to be a very good position to be in.

The fact is that the Townsville agreement is to be signed within the next few days, and that will be an advance. They are participating in all of the programs that are designed to ensure that the staff are appropriately prepared, and I think that is a good position to be in. All of the service providers selected to operate are people or organisations that have been experienced in the area and who have experienced staff. The process by which they were selected means that the people engaged should be able to undertake a centre’s activity quite well.

In relation to the particular centres, they will all be opening and operational, I am informed. They have been involved in training courses. Material has been prepared and I can get the honourable member details of that. Safety, staffing issues and complaints handling are matters to which a great deal of attention has been provided. Yes, there are advertisements; I have, I think, already seen advertisements in the print media in relation to the family relationship centre openings.

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