Page 241 - Week 01 - Wednesday, 10 December 2008
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have, for the most part, brought about very positive outcomes for many hundreds of Canberrans.
Many government-funded programs in the community sector reduce isolation—for example, increasing the capacity of the regional community services to provide individual transport trips and the recently provided community buses. In addition, we all know what a wonderful success the ACT government gold pass for ACTION buses has been, with 5,660 signing up for their gold passes at last count. We now have 111 of our buses with full disabled access across the regular fleet of 389 buses, and there will be an additional four new buses in service by next January. In addition, ACTION has 18 special needs transport mini-buses that are wheelchair accessible. By December 2022, all buses will be fully accessible.
As I said, the not-for-profit organisations conduct many programs supported by the ACT government to assist people to remain actively engaged. One example of this is a program conducted by Volunteering ACT, Connections. This program links volunteers with people living with a mental illness to enable the person to better integrate back into the community after an illness or to maintain links during a time of recovery and times when they are well. This is sometimes critical to their returning to their normal day-to-day lives, which may include paid work.
The ACT government also runs services directly through its departments, such as a mobile library service. This service provides library books that are delivered to people’s own homes. Southside Community Services also conducts adult literacy and numeracy programs. We can all imagine, I am sure, how difficult life would be if we were not able to negotiate some of the everyday things in life, such as reading a road sign or the price of goods in a supermarket. This program assists people to gain these important skills in the privacy of their own homes or in the volunteer’s home. This method of tutoring, of course, is much preferred by adults with a lack of literacy or numeracy skills.
The Rudd federal government has developed a new approach to the problem of social exclusion, proposing solutions that place a value on each Australian and that put the people themselves at the centre of government policy formation and implementation. This new model stresses the need for individually tailored employment services, indicative of the people-centred approach that is being emphasised.
Programs will offer 18 months of individually tailored assistance, but also will allow for a further six months of assistance if a job seeker is close to achieving a job placement at 18 months. I am happy to say that this new approach signifies the end of an era when individuals that shared similar problems were grouped together in a single entity and given a solitary, broad solution to problems which were assumed to be of a uniform nature. The Rudd federal government stresses the importance of dealing with causes and seeking to adopt a “person-first” approach. I do not doubt that this will be very effective.
This model provides for result-based incentives through bonus outcome payments to reward skills development, education and training, with the greatest rewards given to those providers who will find sustainable jobs for job seekers. This model demonstrates the federal government’s determination not to have its policies consumed by red tape and it is aimed at achieving tangible results.
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