Page 2753 - Week 08 - Thursday, 24 August 2006
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The multicultural strategy that the minister will deliver later this year will have to be exceptional if it is to make up for the negative impact that he has had on his portfolio and worrying racial incidents that have occurred over the past year. On a positive note, however, I was really pleased to hear that the minister has ensured that women and young people will be represented in the Muslim advisory group. This is an issue that I have been concerned about for some time and raised several times in the Assembly, so I am really pleased progress has been made.
Turning to indigenous issues, the Greens are very supportive of the progress being made in regard to the ATSI representative body and the consultation that has been conducted. However, I note that there will be no funding to develop this initiative until 2007-08 and that $390,000 will then be provided over four years. I look forward to seeing the recommendations regarding this body and hearing the government’s response.
We are also supportive of the integrated indigenous service delivery, which takes a holistic approach and looks at the education, health and wellbeing of indigenous children and young people. We are especially pleased given the poorer educational outcomes and the saddening overrepresentation of indigenous young people in the care and protection and juvenile justice systems. A child’s transition between different levels of schooling can be very stressful and we need to make sure that at-risk children do not drop out of the system in the process. Many indigenous children will lose their schools if the 2020 strategy goes ahead and I am not sure that all of them will be happily relocated. In other words, gaps will open up that they may well fall through. We need a much clearer explanation of how this initiative will work.
Finally, I think that we were all quite alarmed to hear that ACTCOSS was to lose its only indigenous officers due to a cut in SAAP funding. I think the government quickly realised the extent of its mistake and how reliant it is upon those officers to provide advice to government and provide bridges between different indigenous groups. I was very pleased to hear that the government will be providing $90,000 to keep these officers in ACTCOSS. That, of course, is not enough to maintain the two positions, but ACTCOSS considers them so important that it will find the extra funds from somewhere.
In conclusion, despite my criticisms here of the government and of the minister, I want to pay my respects to everybody who works in this area of the department because it is, I believe, where the hard work of government is done of facing people in need, not always with the resources and the support that are required. My hat goes off to those people in multicultural affairs, community engagement, and disability, housing and community services.
MR PRATT (Brindabella) (11.50): In speaking to the DHCS portfolio, I am going to focus on multicultural affairs. In the 2006-07 budget there is no specific funding identified for multicultural affairs programs and initiatives. The lack of funding or the relatively small amount of funding for this area of the community is starkly evident. In addition to the lack of initiatives in the 2006-07 budget, we have recently heard talk of major cutbacks in government support for Canberra’s multicultural festival and multicultural fringe festival, although there have been some comments made that those activities have been adjusted. We look forward to seeing the results of those adjustments.
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