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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 5 Hansard (13 May) . . Page.. 1255 ..

MS REILLY (continuing):

There seem to be no services that recognise the situation of young people who are leaving school with a future looking extremely bleak. Their opportunities to get into higher education are reduced because of the costs. Their opportunities of getting independence from their parents are being reduced through the threat of the new youth allowance. Their opportunities to access housing are being reduced because of the reduction in housing availability. These young people are alienated and feel depressed, but we do not seem to want to recognise that.

There is no allowance in this budget for youth mental health services or improving the services provided by our numerous youth centres. There are no changes to public transport so that young people can get around. This is an issue that comes up time and time again. There is no way for young people to go and take part in a number of activities, because the public transport system is so poor. There is no public transport late at night. There is no transport so that they can take part in the many sporting activities that Mr Stefaniak mentioned.

This failure to recognise the changes in the job market adds to the stress that has been put on families, and women in particular, following their decisions to take redundancies. These people just have to manage. Families just have to manage. This Government, even though it continues to talk about supporting families, does not feel the need to provide any services that might support families if they suffer distress of any sort. Another group of unemployed within our community who are recognised nationally are men over 40. The difficulty of those people being re-employed in any shape or form is well recognised, but we do not seem to think that the Creating Jobs for Canberra program should look at this group.

There appears to be no strategy in the budget papers to deal with the social issues in the ACT. There are no increases in funds for community services, except for isolated bits and pieces. The budget does not appear to have been based on any properly calculated or properly collected data. This Government does not seem to need or want any type of demand analysis to find out what is really needed in this community. Do we actually know what services we need, or are the responses in this budget, if you look at the allocation of various fundings, merely based on whom the Minister spoke to last, on rewarding supporters, or on saying, "If they were nice people, let us give them some money."?

Another gap within this budget is that there is no recognition of the SACS award, no recognition of paying the people who work within the community sector proper wages that recognise their dedication, their expertise and their professionalism in working in quite often extremely difficult circumstances. It has to go beyond saying that these people are dedicated and will continue to work. They deserve the same rewards and recognition as other groups within our community.

One of the increases mentioned in the budget is an allocation for six houses for people with a disability, but one is left wondering whether this is the number that is required. How was it arrived at that six was the number that should be given? Was six a nice round number? Does it spread out for the regions in the community? This is the whole way of looking at the community sector. There is no strategy, just ad hoc responses to small issues. If there had not been some fuss, discussion and investigation last year,

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