Page 2397 - Week 07 - Thursday, 4 August 2022
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This will include implementing priority recommendations from the We don’t shoot our wounded report identified by the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Reference Group of the Domestic Violence Prevention Council.
The funding in this budget builds on investment from previous years. That investment is already being used to co-design and deliver training to support Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander community responses to domestic and family violence and to trial responses supporting Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women with legal, advocacy and practical and healing services.
Budget—seniors
MS LAWDER: My question is to the Assistant Minister for Families and Community Services. Minister why have you again failed to deliver any new or innovative initiatives in this year’s budget but instead we see more of the same for seniors?
MS DAVIDSON: I thank you for the question. This budget continues our work on the Age-Friendly City Plan, including a number of initiatives that will make our city more accessible and easier for people to get around, as well as continuing some of those initiatives that I have talked about in this place previously around making our city a more dementia-friendly city.
There are also a number of initiatives in areas of health and community services that will particularly benefit older people in our community. Some of the work being done in the Social Recovery framework will be particularly important for older Canberrans, who are often disproportionately impacted by things like natural disasters that might cause, say, power outages or the inability to access services that they would normally need to access, as well as the impacts of the pandemic, which are ongoing. There is quite a bit of work still to be done, but we are continuing to get on with that work.
MS LAWDER: Minister, why does your Labor-Green government continue to neglect seniors and treat them as second-class citizens by failing to include any new initiatives for them in the budget?
MS DAVIDSON: I thank you for the question. There are a number of new initiatives in this budget that will support a number of people in our community who experience increased social isolation and are living on lower incomes, and that includes older people in our community, as well as initiatives that support the health and wellbeing of older people in our community. I provide regular updates on how we are progressing this work through the Age-Friendly City Plan and will continue to do so.
I would particularly like to thank COTA ACT for the ongoing work they do in things such as the Silver is Gold Festival and the Seniors Expo and in making sure that people can get access to seniors cards in the ACT. I look forward to progressing further initiatives that will make it easier for older people in our community to access the services that they need.
MR CAIN: Minister, when will you start prioritising some of our most vulnerable Canberrans, and just when are these ‘wonderful’ plans and policies that you are working on going to be rolled out?
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