Page 4951 - Week 13 - Thursday, 12 November 2009
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the same sorts of entitlements that other workers in other sectors, including the public service, have. It is incredibly important to do that.
I do note Mrs Dunne’s comments around things like the rising costs of childcare and so forth, but I do not think that it is fair to say that community sector workers should continue to be disadvantaged because of the cost of services or issues around how those are going to be delivered. Let us deal with that issue separately. Let us not hold back and deny the community sector workforce an entitlement that many thousands of workers in the ACT have been able to access for a long time.
MS BURCH (Brindabella—Minister for Disability, Housing and Community Services, Minister for Ageing, Minister for Multicultural Affairs and Minister for Women) (12.16): I would like to start by informing the Assembly that the ACT portable long service leave scheme is the first to be introduced in Australia for the community services sector. I thank the Greens for their support, but I note that the Liberals continue to ignore or fail to support the workers’ rights. Whilst it is disappointing, it is certainly non-surprising.
The ACT government is dedicated to fostering a city in which the community sector and the government work together to ensure that all members of the community can contribute to and share the benefits of the community. As outlined in the social compact, the ACT government principles and undertaking aim to achieve a better relationship between these two sectors and provide a framework for strengthening the relationship between the government and the community sector.
The ACT government has continued to demonstrate its support to the community sector and build community capacity for vulnerable members of our community. We have provided specific support services and worked with our community partners to improve the lives of individuals in our community. The ACT government will continue to work with the community sector to address issues of sector sustainability within the dialogue model as articulated in the social compact.
The objectives of the ACT community sector task force were to suggest methods to improve the sector’s industrial relations, its retention and sectoral capacity and information provisions on legislative requirements. In the 2006 Towards a sustainable community services sector in the ACT report, one of the task force recommendations was that the ACT government legislate a mandatory portable long service leave scheme for the community services sector.
The portable long service leave scheme for the community sector was an ACT government commitment in the 2008-09 budget. The purpose of the scheme is to assist organisations to retain valuable staff in the sector. The government has also honoured its commitment and continues to work to have this scheme implemented by 2010. The portable long service leave scheme will cover the childcare industry and community sector workers.
The implementation of a portable long service leave scheme for the ACT community services sector is intended to improve the retention of the community sector as a whole. The scheme recognises the nature of employment in the sector, which is
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