Parents and guardians of disabled people in the ACT must be frustrated to breaking point over disability services in this affluent territory. The deaths of three people in government-run share homes for the disabled in 2000 were obvious grounds for saying something was wrong with disability services in the ACT.
Each death was referred to the coroner.
But such was the disquiet, that towards the end of 2000 pressure mounted in the Legislative Assembly for a separate, specialist inquiry. At the time the Government argued that an inquiry was not warranted, would be too costly and would step across the coronial inquests already in train. The Assembly (with the Opposition and the cross-bench joining forces) passed two motions ordering an inquiry and threatened legislation. The Government was bound to act, but it decided not to appoint visiting law professor Roger West who had 25 years’ experience in disability services. It was a churlish. Instead it appointed former Supreme Court Justice John Gallop, arguing that his background would avoid the legal pitfalls of cross with the coroner.
Mr Gallop has had a long and distinguished legal career, but that was not what was needed. Disability expertise, not legal expertise was needed. An Assembly committee should have done the inquiry – calling whatever experts it needed.
The Gallop appointment has resulted in an inevitable, expensive legal quagmire. Its report is now the subject of an injunction, with accusations that it did not provide procedural fairness to four public servants named in it.
It would have been far better if the Government had appointed someone who would have steered clear of the forensic task of attributing blame for past episodes, someone more inclined to look for systemic failures and what can be done to correct them to improve services in the future. The coroner could be left to do the causes-of-death inquiries.
Coroner Michael Somes did precisely that. In September last year, he ruled on the August 2000 death of Brett Ponting with a finding of accidental drowning. That was in September last year. He is yet to rule on the others.
The inquiry and subsequent legal actions are expected to cost more than $2 million – money that could have been much better spent on disability services themselves, rather than inquiring into them.
Much of the problem was cause by lack of funds. If the new Government lives up to its promise before the election of “”a substantial funding commitment” many of the fears of the parents and guardians would be allayed.
As things stand, the Government should apply to the court to get the injunction lifted and failing that Assembly should be reconvened early and the report tabled. Whether the report furthers the cause about what should be done to improve disability services in the future is open to doubt. It may fulfill that task. More likely the Government will need to recruit someone to do that outside of the legal framework or do what it should have done in the first place – refer it to an Assembly committee where parents and guardians and others with an interest in disability services can get a say freed from the legalisms of a formal inquiry.
As The Canberra Times wrote at the time, “”The best and most measured response to mounting anecdotal evidence of trouble in the disability services sector would have been an inquiry conducted by an Assembly committee. The fact that MLAs protested they were incapable of taking on the task should perhaps have sent alarm bells ringing. Isn’t this precisely . . . how they earn the extra dollars they get for committee membership”.
We now have a new Assembly and a new Government. Let’s hope they can show their mettle.