Page 3184 - Week 10 - Tuesday, 18 October 2022
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people with dementia. These incidents could possibly be averted if bus drivers were given this training as a matter of priority. Of course, the minister with responsibility for seniors is not responsible for public transport, but does it indicate how siloed this government is that ministers have no influence over other portfolios and what other areas of this government are doing? While we do have an Age-Friendly City Plan, which attempts to resolve some of these issues, quite clearly things are not moving fast enough. We have a long way to go before Canberra becomes an age-friendly city, and I will continue to advocate on behalf of older Canberrans and seniors.
I move, now, to the women’s portfolio. Once again, it was disappointing to see that the women’s budget statement lacked any gender responsive budget analysis, despite much talk in previous years about its incorporation into the wider budget process. During estimates hearings, I asked the minister about this issue, as did my colleague Ms Clay. It was frustrating that no timeline could be provided as to when gender appropriate budgeting would be incorporated into the ACT budget. I will continue to pursue this, because Canberra women are really interested to see this occur.
In the estimates report, I was pleased to see several recommendations relating to gender responsive budgeting. Recommendation 7 states:
The Committee recommends that the ACT Government investigate how to improve the effectiveness of wellbeing indicators and gender responsive budgeting and demonstrate that they are influencing budget decisions.
The government’s response noted that the wellbeing dashboard will be periodically reviewed and updated to ensure measures and indicators are useful, with the first report due in 2023. I look forward to reading that report.
Recommendation 9 states:
The Committee recommends that the ACT Government record and report against how many times directorate staff seek support and training in using the gender assessment tool and which agencies seek support.
I support this recommendation, because what is the point of having things such as the gender assessment tool if we do not know how many people are using them nor if, indeed, anyone is using them at all? I was disappointed to see that the government response to this recommendation said:
The ACT Government will continue to incorporate a gender perspective in initiative planning and decision-making through implementation of the Wellbeing Framework, including Wellbeing Impact Assessments.
Whilst that does sound lovely, this response completely fails to touch on the premise of the recommendation, and disregards the very logical point it makes. How can you improve a tool, or promote it for use amongst our public service if you are not measuring its efficiency or usage, whatsoever?
I believe we need more clarity about how the ACT government intends to introduce a gender responsive budget for women and what timeframes are in place to ensure the process is on track. Through a question on notice, I asked the minister when the ACT
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