Page 21 - Week 01 - Tuesday, 25 February 2014
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Ms Burch has let some of our vulnerable women in Canberra down with the closure of the Women’s Information and Referral Centre, and to suggest that it is simply a rebadging of a location is not accurate. Last year, on this minister’s watch, the Women’s Information and Referral Centre was closed, without proper consultation and without proper planning.
The departmental website is now hosting a five-page explanation justifying the closure of the centre which maintains the same position that I have taken in relation to this matter from the beginning—that there was not a comprehensive plan for another form of service delivery, and that the outcomes for women most in need in Canberra are not being put front and centre.
From this justification published on the departmental website, we know that various courses are being rolled in together. No-one yet knows if or how exactly some of the services will be delivered. The words “over the next 12 months” are used several times in the website explanation to describe the processes of planning for better online services and making decisions about the running of groups and sessions for women in need.
The website says that they need to have staff trained to understand how to deal with disclosures in the outer reaches of the electorates in Belconnen and Tuggeranong. It also says that there will be a requirement for a private and safe space for women to access WIRC services being provided in the Theo Notaras centre, but I am not sure if they will be able to find it.
The website also says that consideration is being given to creating outreach sites in the three child and family services and the housing central access point, and that the outreach sites could have signage, information stands and specific workers—existing staff—trained and able to respond to the requests for information. But in the meantime who will these women go to and how will they find out about options when they search for assistance online, in the phone directory or by word of mouth?
The phone number for the Women’s Information and Referral Centre, which the minister assured us in December would be transferred to the Office for Women, now rings out unanswered. This is not just a change of address. Courses such as “thinking Thursdays” and “financial literacy for women” I believe are not being offered. There is a gap in services for vulnerable women in need in the ACT, and it feels like an abandonment of our most vulnerable.
On another issue, last year, for the first time in 17 years, the Women’s Day awards were not awarded. From information explained by the minister at the time, it appears to have been because the date to start the process was missed. The minister has been the Minister for Women since 2009, I believe, and yet she did not know until it was too late that the department had not begun the process of advertising for nominations.
It, in and of itself, was not the worst faux pas. However, it was discouraging for those women who work in the delivery of services or charitable organisations on behalf of women in the ACT that the awards were axed for a year just because the minister did not notice that the process had not commenced. One woman working in the sector at the time said:
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