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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2002 Week 7 Hansard (6 June) . . Page.. 2044 ..

MS TUCKER (continuing):

As I said, Are we bringing them home in 2002? of May this year is one such report. It highlights a series of issues that are yet to be addressed, and I will read out, for the record, a couple of them that I think are particularly important if we are talking about health. As other members have said, health has to be seen in a holistic context; it is not just about the physical condition of people. Health is about how they feel as a culture; it is about whether they have housing, it is about whether they are being appropriately educated.

I have a reaction against pathologising a whole community, which is something that tends to happen with indigenous people. It is important to always stress, when we have this sort of discussion, that you have to look at the social context to understand how people are surviving and how people are being as individuals. There are a lot of Aboriginal people in our community who have found lots of good things in their lives, who are courageous, who are working hard and who are successful. I think we always need to acknowledge that. We could easily pathologise the whole non-indigenous community in a number of areas if we wanted to, if it was a totally different situation. I can think of several ways you could do that with the non-indigenous community. But we do not, of course.

Are we bringing them home in 2002? raised the matter of proposals that are yet to be addressed. These are that the ACT government implement the ATSIC regional countries employment strategies; that the ACT government and private sector set minimum employment targets to match the indigenous proportion of the work force rather than the population; that private enterprise address employment discrimination, especially in retail and real estate; that attention be given to funding and equities, before CDEP and mainstream job placement agencies, for similar intensive assistance for job seekers. Obviously, employment is really important.

Proposals for indigenous education and training yet to be addressed are indigenous sensitivity training for all teachers and staff in all schools and colleges; expansion of alternative education programs for indigenous young people, including girls; support for ASSPA committees to empower the parents of indigenous students in ACT and Queanbeyan schools where needed; and fee exemptions to be offered by the ACT government to indigenous students at CIT.

Proposals for housing yet to be addressed are urgent ACT government action to improve access for indigenous people to affordable and appropriate housing, including faster allocation of housing to indigenous community housing agencies; innovative solutions to the shortage of low-cost housing, including training indigenous people to build and maintain simple, low-impact housing under community management; and a survey of these by Aboriginal Hostels with a view to providing hostels in the ACT.

Another proposal yet to be addressed is for ACT and federal governments to fund preventative services, including intensive family support programs, programs for men and increased resources for supported accommodation, especially for women and children escaping violence.

In the section "Learning to avoid repetition" it is proposed that the ACT government make indigenous sensitivity training compulsory for all staff at all levels and to engage specialist indigenous cultural trainers for the purpose; that DECS establish indigenous

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