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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2004 Week 05 Hansard (Friday, 14 May 2004) . . Page.. 1984 ..

It is totally inappropriate to have a crop of pines in the catchment. Even with good riparian zone ecosystems, the risks of landscape fires and intense rain make pines a bad choice, even without fire-salvaging of pines as a crop. If that is not followed by heavy rains, then you have the same issues for the water catchment. We can spend $8 million on a dragway and $10 million on an arboretum but we cannot properly protect the long-term viability of the catchment. Long-term plans for water supply are all very well, but we have a very short time to get catchment rehabilitation right. This is a critical opportunity. We need to show leadership and have a long-term perspective when we make decisions about water catchment.

I want to talk now about the viability of the community sector as others, including Ms Dundas, have done. The viability issues for the community services are still pressing and have not been acknowledged by this budget. We have heard the Treasurer say publicly that it suits the government to have services delivered by the community sector because it saves money. While to a point this is about the efficiency of the sector, there is a line which has been well and truly crossed, and that is that the sector is cheaper because it is underpaid and undersupported compared to the public and private sectors. Arguably this is at the expense of the people working in it, as well as the people they support.

Many effective and committed people move on to the more reasonable workable conditions in the other sectors. Considering that these services are dealing with marginalised people in our community and require skilled people to be working in them, this is an unacceptable situation. It is, in fact, a disturbing reflection of values in our society. If we can be measured by how we treat those who are disenfranchised and marginalised in our society, then we could certainly be doing better.

I make the point that we are talking about people who have a mental illness or a disability, carers, indigenous peoples, people who have been brutalised in some way, people who are new to Australia and people suffering economic disadvantage for various reasons. We hear a consensus from all sides of the political debate that capacity building, support and empowerment are the ways to address social disadvantage, but those who are on the front line of that work are not being properly supported. I see this as a serious failure in public policy not only in the ACT but also nationally and internationally.

We see a growing divide in our societies between the haves and have-nots. We see the influence of the neo-liberal approach on both major parties increasingly result in their policies being disassociated from the reality of the everyday lives of the citizens, as well as failure to take a responsible long-term approach to ecological sustainability. The consequences of these failings are serious. We have choices, we understand what works and what does not, we understand what supports inclusion and engagement and what creates greater division, but we still fail to see this understanding adequately translated in policy decisions and budget policy decisions. While there is money put aside in this budget for pay rises for the public sector, and which I certainly support, there is no commitment to pay the community sector above the very limited—and frozen—SACS award.

I would, however, like to put on the record my support for the Community Inclusion Board, which might prove to be a really valuable and profound initiative. I think it will

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