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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2004 Week 02 Hansard (Wednesday, 3 March 2004) . . Page.. 633 ..

community sector funding policy appears to be a step in the right direction to change the relationship between community organisations and the government. We are pleased that the government has committed to introduce multiuse service agreements and to collaboratively develop guidelines for the pricing of services and the management of contracts. I will be interested to see the impact of this policy on the community sector.

I have a quick comment on the Community Inclusion Board as announced in the social plan. The Greens’ preference would be that the Assembly have access to this Community Inclusion Board. What we do not want to see once again is key people in the community basically being co-opted by government. I have seen that happen over the years, with previous governments as well. If you are going to bring in these key people who do have so much expertise to inform government, do not make it just informing government, and especially do not make it working to the bureaucracy. Make them available to the Assembly. That way it is open and transparent and we can all benefit from the expertise and the debate is open and public.

My last comment, and it is an obvious one, is: how does this plan fit together with the other plans—the economic white paper, the spatial plan, the common Canberra plan? It is really quite a challenge for the government to show us how these plans are going to fit together. I would say that the main concern that the Greens have here is that, when difficult decisions need to be made in the future, what tradeoffs are going to be made between each of the three goals of sustainability: economic, environmental and social.

MS DUNDAS (11.52): I will speak to the substantive motion as well as Ms Tucker’s amendment, and once we have dealt with Ms Tucker’s amendment I will be moving my own amendment. I will start by saying that I was actually considering voting against this motion. I am generally supportive of the concept of a social plan and the aims contained within the social plan, but I do not think it is necessary for the government to indulge in this sort of self-congratulatory backslapping, particularly when we are talking about this particular document, the social plan.

Generous press is not a measure of success; achieving real goals and outcomes is. The social plan is part of the broader Canberra plan, making up the Canberra plan with the economic white paper and the spatial plan. But the social plan has been through the smallest amount of consultation and is out there in the community for the smallest amount of time. It received, I believe, less thought compared to the spatial plan or the economic white paper. It is, on the face of it, mostly a regurgitation of current government policy wrapped up in some nice rhetoric. So it appears to be an exercise in marketing rather than a commitment to improvements in social policy. I am disappointed to see that the government will not put its money where its mouth is and attach timeframes and costings to some of the proposals contained within.

I particularly support and welcome the development of child and family centres, the multicultural centre and the community inclusion fund. But the people of Canberra have no idea when they will see these benefits, or how much the government will invest in them. I also think it is unfortunate that the chair of the Cultural Inclusion Board has been appointed without any community consultation. I do not want to make any disparaging comments about Hugh Mackay; no doubt he is an eminent and leading social commentator, but we did not have any discussion about whether or not somebody who does not live in Canberra is the right person to chair the Cultural Inclusion Board.

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