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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 13 Hansard (2 December) . . Page.. 4306 ..

MRS CARNELL (continuing):

As an outcome of the summit, the Government has decided to formally establish a separate Aboriginal Justice Advisory Committee to be facilitated by the Attorney-General's Department. The formal establishment of the AJAC will present an opportunity to develop a more streamlined and coordinated approach to dealing with Aboriginal justice issues in the ACT. The Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Consultative Council supports this move.

Development of a strategic plan for indigenous health is currently under way as part of the Commonwealth, ACT and ATSIC tripartite Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health agreement. This agreement involves a Health Forum with representatives from the Winnunga Nimmityjah Aboriginal Health Service, the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Consultative Council and the ATSIC Regional Council.

As part of a strategic plan for education, implementation of a three-year ACT-Commonwealth indigenous education agreement is under way. The agreement includes indigenous consultation. The Minister for Education and Training has appointed an indigenous education consultative body to advise on indigenous education matters. Under the agreement the ACT is a participant in the national Aboriginal education plan, which includes 21 goals for indigenous education.

The Commonwealth and the ACT are in the process of developing an indigenous housing agreement. The consultative council has been briefed on the proposal and will be consulted on the proposed principles of the agreement. Work has commenced on developing a strategic plan for indigenous training and employment in conjunction with an indigenous reference group. This plan will incorporate public and private sector employment and associated training issues and will involve discussions with the Commonwealth.

I turn to population statistics. The release of the 1996 census has revealed that the indigenous population of the ACT has risen to 2,898, or one per cent of the ACT population. This is an increase of 81.9 per cent since the previous census in 1991. This rise in population has significant implications for service delivery by the ACT Government. To improve the monitoring and performance reporting by mainstream programs, in preparing the 1998 report on Commonwealth-State service provisions all jurisdictions have been asked, as part of their data collection, to give particular attention to the performance of services in relation to indigenous clients. The ACT 1998 data collection for the 1998 report on Commonwealth-State service provision will provide meaningful indigenous indicators for many areas of government service provision. This includes data on school education, vocational education and training, children's services, protection and support services, housing assistance, aged care, disability services, public health care, courts administration, emergency services, and police and corrective services. In some service delivery areas data collection methods will need to be further developed to allow reporting to the desired level.

Consultation with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples is the first theme of this report. To ensure that quality services are delivered, considerable consultation with the indigenous community has been undertaken across government with a range of advisory mechanisms. The Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Consultative Council have

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