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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2000 Week 5 Hansard (11 May) . . Page.. 1499 ..

Mr Speaker, I present the Government Response to Report No. 4 of the Standing Committee on Health and Community Care on the 1998-99 Annual and Financial Reports for the Department of Health and Community Care and Related Agencies.

The Committee made twelve recommendations with the main issues focussing on animal fats in fast food cooking, indigenous health, disability funding, adverse incidents, public hospital funding, men's health, and counselling and information services at public housing complexes.

Mr Speaker, the Government Response indicates the Government's full support to most of the recommendations made in the Committee's Report, and of the twelve recommendations, eight are agreed, three are noted, and one is not agreed.

The Government Response also provides information on the work being undertaken by the ACT Government in addressing all the issues raised in the Committee's Report. In particular, I'd like to highlight the work being undertaken in the area of indigenous health, which is the subject of a separate inquiry currently being conducted by the Standing Committee.

Recommendation 3 advised the Government to conduct research to obtain accurate data on the level of indigenous drug use in the ACT and develop the necessary strategies to address the issue, while Recommendation 4 advised the Government to expedite the development of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Health Strategy.

In relation to the level of indigenous drug use in the ACT, a study by the National Centre for Epidemiology and Population Health indicates that the numbers of indigenous people with problematic drug and alcohol use in the ACT is high and that indigenous people make up a disproportionately large number of clients accessing services in the ACT.

Commencing 1 July 2000, all Government and non-Government drug and alcohol service providers will be required to record the indigenous status of clients as part of their contracts. This will enable more accurate numbers of indigenous people accessing these services to be ascertained.

In addition to accurately measuring the extent to which indigenous people access drug and alcohol services, the Department of Health and Community Care will investigate ways to educate the indigenous community about the availability of drug and alcohol services, both indigenous based and mainstream, as well as providing cultural awareness training to mainstream services.

The Government is also currently working in a tripartite agreement with the Commonwealth and the regional ATSIC office in developing an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Regional Health Action Plan.

The recommendation not agreed in the Government Response is in relation to the Men's Awareness Network program, or MAN program. My Department has considered the MAN model and found that this approach to men's health promotion was not the most suitable for the ACT, on the basis that it did not have the capacity to reach the most at-risk population groups, and provided a service for those men who were already aware of risk factors and have

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