Page 2918 - Week 10 - Thursday, 7 October 2021
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There are already great strengths in our community. We have all seen examples of great charity, support and kindness throughout our lockdowns. Watching the chat box for the daily presser gives me great hope in the humanity of Canberrans. But for all the examples of community strength, we also need to see the unseen. For every person stepping forward with charity and kindness, there are many more stepping back into the shadows, withdrawing from the community and reducing the number and depth of their connections with others.
Canberra is more than the sum of the 462,213 individuals who live here. It is about the connections and relationships that exist between those individuals. If we were not a community, would anyone here believe lime-flavoured milk would become a thing? To plagiarise badly: I am, you are, we are Canberrans. As Canberrans, we need to help our community to recover, and that means giving a helping hand to those who have stepped back into the shadows, not letting them go or leaving them behind. Some might need a little more help; some a lot.
This is not just a moral duty; this is in our social and economic interest. It makes our community richer in both a figurative and literal sense. To start to heal, we need ideas that put people at the heart of our recovery; ideas to care for people who need extra support; ideas to excite and inspire people, as well as ideas that gently ask them to reach out and reconnect. Creating a community recovery plan will help us develop the tools and frameworks to guide this work. We are at a critical moment and have the opportunity to rewrite the rules to ensure a community where everyone is supported to thrive. In crisis can be found opportunity.
Social recovery can provide many advantages to Canberra. A plan can identify actions to be addressed by government, by the community sector and by the private sector to facilitate sustainable economic growth and mitigate the social impacts from COVID-19. It can capture opportunities for or identify impediments to employment growth. It can support and enable Canberrans to take advantage of different ways of life, different ways of work and business, or reinvent themselves in new and emerging industries.
This motion is not to say that the ACT government has not been supporting the social recovery of Canberra. It has, and I thank everyone involved for their time and effort. To avoid duplication and to ensure I do not miss anyone, I will leave it to ministers to explain these. This motion is to say, “Let us have a plan”—a plan developed in consultation with the community that articulates what we want to achieve to help us face the unprecedented challenges, the significant uncertainty and risk and the dependence on a range of interrelated social and economic factors. Let us have a plan.
I thank the Assembly for leave to move the amendment to my motion. This is in light of yesterday’s discussion we had on Ms Lee’s motion about the targeted assistance strategy. As I said, I have no issue with being gazumped as long as the policy outcome is achieved and we can ensure that government assistance is fit for purpose and helps those who need it.
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