Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . .

Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 12 Hansard (13 November) . . Page.. 4129 ..

MRS CARNELL (continuing):

In the area of education, this year the Aboriginal artist in residence is working in youth centres during school holidays, providing a program for indigenous and non-indigenous youth. An early childhood teacher is now working with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children aged 5 to 8 years to improve their literacy skills. In this school term, 40 teachers will attend an in-service program promoting literacy skills for indigenous children using the package "Deadly, Eh Cuz" - an Aboriginal English package.

The Koori sport and recreation program is now well established, with more people accessing the program. The indigenous community are receiving training in coaching, sport and recreation administration, first aid and sports training. Six young indigenous school students, aged 15 to 18 years, have been trained as traditional games leaders and have delivered 18 traditional games displays in 1996-97. The program has been accepted by mainstream sport and recreation programs and is being integrated into wider community sporting activities.

Family Services have created four new identified positions - ASO5s - two child protection workers, one foster care worker and a youth justice worker. A number of Aboriginal people have accessed the special arrangements made through the adoption information services to trace links with families or communities. An indigenous officer is available to assist indigenous clients.

Mr Speaker, the examples that I have provided are but a few of the many practical initiatives that this Government has supported to make fairness and opportunity a reality rather than just rhetoric. This Government, through its customer focused public service initiatives, will continue to ensure that its services are accessible, fair, responsive, effective, efficient, accountable and made available to those eligible through appropriate and effective communication strategies. We will continue to ensure that members of the ACT community have full opportunity to access the Territory's social, political and economic life regardless of socioeconomic status, race, ethnicity, religion, language, gender, or place of birth, as we all have a responsibility to ensure that members of our community are treated fairly and with dignity.

Mr Speaker, the notion of fairness and opportunity also demands that service providers are sensitive to the needs of customers and that they have been trained to meet those needs. Under the previous Government, cross-cultural awareness training was provided to ACT Public Service employees on an ad hoc basis. Under this Government, some 500 customer contact staff received training last year on how to work with interpreters and people who presented at counters with interpreter cards.

This year my department will implement a detailed and targeted cross-cultural awareness training package across the ACT Public Service. The coordinated approach to this training will ensure that customer contact staff and those who supervise work groups with large numbers of staff from culturally diverse backgrounds are provided with an appropriate standard of training as part of their ongoing development and commitment to the delivery of quality services, particularly to customers from diverse cultural backgrounds.

Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . .