Page 167 - Week 01 - Wednesday, 15 February 2006
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The respect and high regard felt by the Canberra community had never been more evident than in the aftermath of the recent fire that left the partially-completed Koomarri Centre in ruins. With true community spirit, Canberrans rallied around to support Koomarri through moral support and through many generous donations to assist with the rebuilding. The ACT government supports the Koomarri Association in its ventures by providing over $2 million a year in funding. This funding is used to provide support to people with disabilities in the ACT in many different ways. Koomarri also financially supports itself by its various business enterprises.
Koomarri is one of the public sector organisations the government teams with to help implement our policy directions. It is very supportive of the work that the department, in particular Disability ACT, is doing in the area of policy direction, in particular the future directions framework for the ACT 2004-08, which identifies four strategic directions to support people with disabilities to achieve their vision and values.
Koomarri’s chief executive, Margaret Spalding, was a member of the Disability Reform Group, which was set up by the Chief Minister, Jon Stanhope, in 2002, to work with Disability ACT, formerly the Office of Disability, to provide advice to government on the findings and recommendations of the Gallop inquiry into disability services in the ACT. This group also developed the visions and values for people with disabilities that underpins all the work done by Disability ACT.
Ms Spalding has been co-chair and a member of the Disability Advisory Council for a number of years. She is actively involved in the development and implementation of future directions, and she is currently the community co-chair of the Department of Disability, Housing and Community Services’ oversight group, overseeing the work done by the four future directions reference groups established to progress future directions. The oversight group provides advice on strategic approaches for the implementation of future directions.
One of the major barriers to full participation in our community by people with a disability is lack of access to employment. The Stanhope government last year announced that one-third of the recruits for the 2006 ACT public service graduate program have a disability—a move that has been implemented in an effort to break down these employment barriers and provide equal access to public sector employment for people with a disability. We encourage non-government organisations and businesses to also consider what employment opportunities they have for Canberrans with disabilities.
Last year for the first time the ACT government and business leaders in the ACT got together for BLITS—business leaders: innovation, thoughts, solutions—a roundtable to discuss new and practical avenues to address some of the many barriers that prevent Canberrans with a disability from accessing employment and other quality of life foundations that we often take for granted. The roundtable was well attended, with 21 business leaders from across Canberra participating. Feedback has suggested that many were unaware of some of the barriers that existed, and I was left inspired that businesses in Canberra are beginning to identify and implement employment opportunities and strategies for people with a disability.
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