Page 1672 - Week 05 - Wednesday, 1 April 2009
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I call on the ACT government to use Youth Week as an opportunity to highlight the needs of this small but vulnerable group in our community and to continue to work with them and with groups such as Carers ACT, CyclopsACT and the Youth Coalition, who work so diligently to assist our young carers by providing programs or advocating on their behalf.
I would like to acknowledge the work currently being undertaken by the ACT government and youth services. I would also like to draw attention to the Youth InterACT conference being held on Friday. The theme of this year’s conference is “Redefine 2009”; forum topics that will be addressed during the conference include cyber-bullying, binge drinking culture, mental health and wellbeing, the perception of youth in the media and “environment—a climate for change”. This conference and the Youth Advisory Council are essentially the government’s formal consultation mechanism with children and young people.
I would really like to see the Minister for Children and Young People interact far more broadly with the young people of the ACT and actively obtain and process feedback from services and events beyond the formal mechanisms. While I recognise the value of this conference and the work of the minister’s youth council, and the engagement they provide with young people, I sincerely hope the government will act on the outcomes or recommendations of the conference.
I have been advised that this year the conference will result in a series of recommendations that the government have said that they will respond to and, hopefully, implement. I look forward to seeing the report and talking to the minister about how the information collated at the conference will be actioned. Perhaps the government should prepare a government response such as they do for committee reports here in the Assembly.
My motion calls on the ACT government to produce an updated young people’s plan, something that has been in the works for over a year—certainly when I was at the Youth Coalition. This plan was due to run out in 2008. It was sitting with the minister for some time for him to decide where to go. Having checked this information out there with youth services, and extensively, I want to say that no formal process has been started about a new youth plan. The feedback I have had as late as today is that no youth organisation out there across the territory has been engaged in any sort of formal process—nor have any been informed of any process—and that none of the presenters who are facilitating at the Youth InterACT conference have been told, as part of their briefing for that conference, that that might be the start or part of putting together a young people’s plan.
As far as I have been informed, the minister and the department are still in high level discussions about the future plan. I have heard that the minister is considering whether it should be a joint children and young people plan or whether it should be two separate plans for children and for young people. It seems that we are not yet down to the nitty-gritty of what is actually in the plan and how it would impact on youth services and youth issues across government.
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