Page 5124 - Week 14 - Tuesday, 17 November 2009
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policy advice to government. The ACT government’s Office of Multicultural Affairs chairs and provides secretariat support to that committee. As such, the Office of Multicultural Affairs has a leading role in the coordination of settlement services and policies relating to refugees, asylum seekers and other humanitarian entrants.
The government has a long history of making the ACT a safe and welcoming place. The government recognises that refugees and asylum seekers have significantly different life experiences leading up to their migration. Refugees have often experienced trauma or tragedy and are forced to leave their countries of origin often without notice about which country in which they will settle or when they can return to their country of origin. The ACT government realises this and provides support to assist in this resettlement of refugees. For example, the ACT government provides housing stock for the refugee transitional housing program to provide short-term, on-arrival accommodation. ACT Health provides funding for the good afternoon program of good and healthy eating.
The Department of Disability and Community Services funds the migrant and settlement services to undertake the program for after-hours school studies, the men’s African chef cooking courses and English language classes. The government recognises the unique experiences of refugees and asylum seekers, and that will continue to be firmly demonstrated in the upcoming ACT multicultural strategy 2010-13, which includes a dedicated focus area on these individuals.
Additionally, relevant actions to address the needs of refugees and other humanitarian entrants will also be included in the additional focus areas of the strategy, which are: languages, children and young people, older people and aged care, women, intercultural harmony, and religious acceptance. For example, I note that many refugees living in the ACT are children or young people. As such, the strategy focus area on children and young people will reflect this as a key consideration for agencies’ actions.
The Department of Education and Training also has a key role to play in addressing the needs of children and young people with refugee backgrounds. Each year a number of refugee or humanitarian visa holders enrol in the four ACT introductory English centres. Mr Speaker, the ACT government is also well connected with new and emerging multicultural community groups. The Office of Multicultural Affairs works with new refugees and other humanitarian entrants to make invaluable connections with these local community groups.
New and emerging community groups play a vital role in helping other refugees to settle in the community and to build important relationships with people with similar life experiences as well as with members of the wider community. For example, the Theo Notaras Multicultural Centre plays an important role in enabling new and emerging communities, such as the Sudanese community and the Mon community, to link with new arrivals.
Today I have outlined the ACT government’s overarching commitment to the resettlement of refugees, asylum seekers and other humanitarian entrants into the ACT. It is clear that the ACT government's responsibility regarding resettlement of
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