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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2004 Week 07 Hansard (Tuesday, 29 June 2004) . . Page.. 2860 ..

resources in that department depleted considerably? It not only puts great pressure on those that remain; it creates an occupational health and safety issue which I know is very important to everybody in this place.

So it does present to us a contradiction. Moneys have been put in the budget because we want to show we are committed to multiculturalism, yet we are reducing the resources in the Office of Multicultural and Indigenous Affairs. One has to question why that decision is being made and why the Chief Minister has condoned it. Has the direction come from him? Where is the direction coming from? Why is that resource being reduced?

I seem to recall that line item two years ago when we were questioning the Chief Minister and his then head of the public service as to why, when there was an obvious verbal commitment by the government—not only in multicultural affairs but also in women’s affairs—a separate area was not set up for women’s affairs with a separate budget rather than using existing resources from the Office of Multicultural and Indigenous Affairs to do an additional job. I got a very testy answer from the then public servant and an even testier one from the Chief Minister.

If the government is genuinely committed to things multicultural, and we certainly have a very robust multicultural community here in the ACT, why are many segments of the multicultural community extremely irritated by the government’s lack of presence at many of their events? It seems to be a pattern with some members of this government to start going to things in a very intense fashion weeks out from an election. However, in the months leading up to an election usually nobody is there except members of the opposition and the crossbench. This has certainly irritated the multicultural community, who seems to think that the government’s commitment to them is greater than the rest of ours. I think they are coming to the conclusion that that is not the case because our presence there is an indication that our commitment to them is far greater than the government’s.

I need to mention to government members that their absence from these events is noted. Given the many other instances of concern that have been raised in the community this year, it is not going to be forgotten when October comes around. I believe it reflects an element of arrogance, particularly from the Chief Minister. He is so confident that he is going to do so well in this election he does not need to put the work into the people that he says he is genuinely committed to.

There is an aspect of the budget that I was pleased with, and that was the women’s budget statement. It is a significant step. I am encouraged by the fact that 87.7 per cent of all budget initiatives, either directly or indirectly, benefit women. Particularly pleasing to me were some initiatives that directly benefited women. The increase in the number of breast cancer nurses is much needed and welcomed. In Australia, breast cancer is the most common cause of cancer-related deaths amongst women, with one in 11 women being diagnosed with breast cancer before they turn 75. Seemingly more frightening is the fact that breast cancer incidents are on the rise in Australia—up from 94.6 cases per 100,000 people in 1990 to 115.3 cases per 100,000 in 2000.

However, this coincides with the increase in screenings that have occurred since the introduction of the national breast cancer screening program in 1993. These statistics,

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