Page 403 - Week 02 - Tuesday, 17 February 2015
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year’s Multicultural Festival. The planning and delivering of logistics and infrastructure required for our festival are immense. There is the preplanning, months in advance, of the festival. There is the building of the stalls and stages throughout the city, and the list goes on.
So much of this work is done behind the scenes—before, during and after the festival—and tends to go unacknowledged. This work involves special efforts by staff in ACT Health, in TAMS and, of course, in the Community Services Directorate to ensure a safe and enjoyable event for all Canberrans. There are our police and emergency services teams who work to support festival goers and make sure that they are safe and secure.
I would like to make special mention of ACTION buses—their drivers and other staff—for their hard work throughout the festival. The special platforms and service diversions were done well. This year there was a free ACTION shuttle bus on Saturday from Mitchell, Kippax, Jamison, Kambah, Weston, Mawson and Calwell shops park and ride facilities. The use of the free park and ride shuttles and the special Multicultural Festival nightrider services shows how ACTION bus services adapt to the changing needs of the Canberra public to get people to the festival and safely home again.
Last, but certainly by no means least, there are our festival sponsors, who partner with the ACT government to make this event possible. Our sponsors are so important to the growing success of our festival. This year we were delighted to welcome on board Swedish furniture giant IKEA as a major sponsor, joining other generous sponsors such as CBD Ltd, ACTEW Water, ACTTAB, AFP, Lease and Salary Masters, media partners Prime TV and 666 ABC, and charity partners Menslink and— (Time expired.)
Schools—safety
MR WALL: My question is to the Minister for Education and Training. Minister, I refer to the situation where an individual without a working with vulnerable people check visited ACT schools through a program facilitated by a community organisation. Minister, will you provide to the Assembly by the close of business today which schools were visited and on what dates?
MS BURCH: I will seek some advice about what that is, but let us be very clear: we all know what this matter is. I have read a statement which included an extract from the letter from the chair. That has been very pointed in saying that at no point—at no point—were kids put at risk and I know that the schools have valued the silence is deadly program. So, again, I just caution those opposite to say where they are going to land with this, because the silence is deadly program is a great program—
Mr Hanson interjecting—
MS BURCH: It is a great program that is making a good impact on troubled—
Mr Hanson interjecting—
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