Rachel Siewert (WA, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

I seek leave to return to consideration of the President's report to the Senate on the status of government responses to parliamentary committee reports as at 30 June 2017.

Leave granted.

I move:

That the Senate take note of the document.

I think we should all take note of the extensive list of responses that have not been received. I particularly want to draw attention to the committee reports from the Community Affairs References Committee. There is, in fact, a whole page of reports that the government has not responded to. It says 'interim' in the list of responses received. Interim means, 'We're going to get back to you, folks', but they have not responded to the specific recommendations—for example, in The effectiveness of special arrangements for the supply of Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme (PBS) medicines to remote area Aboriginal Health Services. That report was done in 2011! It's a very, very important issue. There are a number of other reports that have not been responded to: The factors affecting the supply of health services and medical professionals in rural areas. This is a very important report. I should note that I chaired all of these inquiries, and I can tell this chamber that the senators put an awful lot of work into these reports. But, more importantly, communities have put an awful lot of work into these inquiries. Individuals, community-based organisations, businesses, professional bodies have put an awful lot of work into these inquiries, and what does the government do? It has not bothered to respond to a large number of them.

One of the reports that I am frequently contacted about is Prevalence of different types of speech, language and communication disorders and speech pathology services in Australia. That was an extremely important report that made a large number of recommendations. Community organisations put a great deal of work into that. There are extremely important issues at stake here, but the government has not responded to this report which was tabled on 2 September 2014. Government, where is the response? Why haven't you responded? This is appalling. One report has been responded to—Adequacy of existing residential care arrangements available for young people with severe physical, mental or intellectual disabilities in Australiabut why haven't the other reports, which are equally important, not been responded to?

We have not got a response on, for example, Indefinite detention of people with cognitive and psychiatric impairment in Australia, which was tabled last year—more than six months ago, so the government's had ample time to look at this. Again, these are extremely important issues.

Out of home care , about children taken into care—the government has not responded to that. Again, it is outrageous that the government has not responded, particularly when you look at the ever-escalating number of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children who are going into care. When that inquiry first started, 51 per cent of those in out-of-home care in WA were Aboriginal children. Do you know how many it is now? Fifty-four per cent. It's gone up another three per cent. Aboriginal children only make up around six per cent of the child population in Western Australia. It's gone up in the NT as well. The government has a royal commission going on at the moment in the Northern Territory, around youth detention. Maybe it should be looking at the underlying causes that these children end up in detention. We know that children going into out-of-home care have worse outcomes. There are definitely links to the justice system, yet the government has not responded to that report.

The government should get its act together and respond to these community affairs reports and all the other reports that the committees spend so much time on and that the community commits so much time to, over and over again. I'm not surprised that Speech Pathology Australia is extremely disappointed—I can tell you that—that the government has not responded to that report. Likewise, other organisations are deeply offended that the government has not responded to other reports that they have put so much effort into. Please get your act together and respond to these reports and don't show such disrespect to the committees that do the work and, more importantly, to the Australians who've put so much effort into these inquiries and do it expecting the government to take it on board and to take some action.

Question agreed to.