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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1999 Week 7 Hansard (2 July) . . Page.. 2183 ..

MR TEMPORARY DEPUTY SPEAKER: Mr Stanhope, you are now on your second 10 minutes.

MR STANHOPE: I think it was extremely disappointing that the Government rejected the Estimates Committee's recommendations in relation to mentally ill people. I know that this matter will be further pursued, but I think it is extremely important that the Government commits itself to an open and transparent assessment of the proposed changes to housing policy in so far as they will impact on people with that particular disability.

One other matter that it is very important that we raise and focus on in relation to the Health and Community Care budget and some of our priorities is the need to develop and implement an Aboriginal health strategic plan that we are genuinely committed to. I know that the Minister's department is working on an Aboriginal health strategic plan. I believe it is something that has been seriously neglected in the past. I trust that it is receiving the resourcing and the support from within the department and from the Minister that it deserves. I think this is a most important issue and I believe it requires very significant support from the Minister and from his senior officers. It is a matter of very significant concern to me, and I am sure to every thinking person in the Canberra community, that the health status of indigenous people in Canberra mirrors the health status of indigenous people in all other jurisdictions around Australia. Some of us have always felt that Canberra is different and that we really do match the rhetoric about being a community that applies a range of services without discrimination; that this is a community that is prepared to ensure that those least able and perhaps most affected by disadvantage are not disadvantaged in their health status or in any other way.

There is a significant indigenous population in the ACT. There are now, on most assumptions, about 3,000 or 4,000 indigenous people in this community. It is not as if we can dismiss the health status of indigenous people by assumptions that there are very few indigenous people here and that the statistics in relation to their health can be dismissed as irrelevant in some way. In Canberra our indigenous neighbours, our indigenous friends, can expect to die over 20 years before our white neighbours. That is the situation here in Canberra. I believe this is one of the great scandals in Australia. I am particularly conscious that it is a scandal that persists here in the ACT; that our indigenous neighbours, our indigenous workmates, our indigenous friends, can all expect to die on average 20 years before we do. That is a terrible thing to contemplate. That raw statistic or fact in itself goes to a range of other health issues facing indigenous people. We do have an excellent indigenous health service here in Canberra in Winnunga Nimmityjah. It is overstressed in terms of what is being asked of it. It does require nurturing and support. It does need the continuing assistance of the Government and all of us.

I made a point earlier in relation to a range of issues in the black deaths in custody and the Bringing them home reports. I will not repeat that. I made it earlier in relation to the Chief Minister's Department, but it is something which affects Health and Community Services as much as other areas, and that is why we need an all-of-government and very strategic approach to indigenous issues in Canberra. There is a range of recommendations in relation to indigenous health that I believe we need to

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