Page 319 - Week 02 - Tuesday, 20 February 1990
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view that social equity goes far beyond social justice and is therefore a far better approach in resolving and addressing the problems of our community. Our strategy for equity will lead to a more comprehensive integrated fairer response to social need in the ACT.
The approach we are developing is, simply put, a means of making Canberra a better place to live. We want to allow the removal of barriers faced by some members of the community disadvantaged, for example, by gender, by age, by race, by limited self-determination, by income or for any other reasons. We want to give all members of the ACT community the opportunity to share in the economic and physical resources of the community and the decisions about how these resources are allocated.
I see a social equity strategy as being necessarily a long-term program which will involve setting particular targets to meet the needs of the most disadvantaged in our community first. We will set up rigorous processes to ensure that government services are provided efficiently to those most in need. The Alliance Government's social equity strategy is based on the very simple idea that we need to evaluate the performance of policies, programs and services against some objective measures. The Government sees this strategy as an essential step in achieving a leaner and more efficient public service and the Government is determined that such efficiencies will not be at the expense of the needs of Canberra's disadvantaged. In fact, the opposite is true. Any alterations to policies, programs or services must benefit Canberra, its citizens and or its environment.
I thank the Opposition for raising this matter of public importance today because it gives the Government the opportunity to outline some major directions which are currently being developed and which we have not yet had the opportunity to present. Because the Government has not talked about its social equity strategy does not mean that it does not exist, and I can assure the Opposition that our Government is very clear on the directions that it is taking. Social equity is integral to our planning and our budgeting. That is something that Mike Salvaris told the previous Government but it ignored it entirely.
I will now outline very briefly some of the initiatives that the Government is considering in the areas of needs of women, the ageing, families, youth, people with disabilities, veterans, and people of ethnic origins. All of these areas are seen as key target groups by this Government in pursuing an effective social equity strategy - and we are talking about a strategy, not some hit or miss minor programs that do not fit together in any sense to constitute a strategy.
In the high priority area of women's needs, I will shortly be releasing the Alliance Government's policy on the status of women in the ACT. The Government is committed to
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