Page 116 - Week 01 - Wednesday, 15 February 2006
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DR FOSKEY: I think the government amendments avoid the issue. I hoped that the ACT government would take on the challenge of building a transparent strategy to engage Canberra’s diverse communities in developing the framework to succeed the existing framework for a multicultural ACT. I can see no reason for the removal of paragraph 4, unless it is a way to avoid accountability. Paragraph 4 is, I believe, inoffensive, and I believe it just restates what the government says. It spells out in more detail and puts more detail into the government’s own community engagement policy.
Don’t the minister or the government want to consult with young people or women on this project? I do not believe that. I had thought that the ACT Labor Party would appreciate the importance of running such a process well and would accept the guidance implicit in its own community engagement manual to ensure that the diversity of people that the framework is meant to support really are part of its development. We could have emerged with a document with really strong support from all parts of the community, leading to more connectedness.
The minister spoke about multicultural forums at some length. That is, of course, one part of community consultation. He especially talks about the fact that the forum allowed groups to meet their minister, and of course him to meet the groups. But another really important part of any grouping of people is that they meet each other. That’s really where the sort of interconnectedness and strength develops. Also, they don’t just mix with each other; they mix with the so-called broader English-speaking-background people. We would expect our government to recognise the importance and value of meeting face to face with constituents. But consultation by summit is not community engagement.
Community development workers—there are many people working in those areas in the ACT—know that to hear what young people think requires young people to talk to young people. I am sorry, but we just do not cut it with them. We do not necessarily know the language that people use. We do not know young people’s concerns, and we do not know the questions to ask. We need to acknowledge that; that is okay. I am sorry that the government does not acknowledge that.
This is also true of women’s concerns. Can we honestly say that we know the diverse opinions and concerns of Canberra’s linguistically diverse women? Let us ensure that women are heard and that we understand that in many of our cultural communities women do not talk comfortably to men, for instance. We know they often prefer having women doctors, and often they need to speak to women from their own cultural groups. So let us acknowledge that. We want to hear what they say, so we need to use the mechanisms that will allow them to speak. I also talked to people at the summit. It was a great summit, and I congratulate your department, minister, on having the summit. I am not playing us and them, and that is reflected in the motion.
Women from a number of communities told me that they were concerned that the issues that they had in common were not always reflected by the things that the leaders of the ethnic communities talk about in their meetings and with the government. It is the leaders that the government speak to about concerns. But many women were concerned that the things that they worry about—their families, this and that; I do not know because we did not get to that level—are not being heard. These women also said that they would
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