Page 853 - Week 03 - Wednesday, 18 March 2015
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community. Government certainly has a role through its policies and resources but, at the end of the day, it is a community that creates belonging. My colleague Dr Bourke has explored the definitions of social inclusion and equality as well as its opposite—exclusion, where people are left out or pushed out of the life of the community. I want to go a further step and explore what inclusion and equality mean in daily life.
Every day we see, hear or read about people who are being left out of the life of our city. The Chief Minister talked about his own experiences earlier with the story he shared about a person he knew. I will touch on this again a bit later. These are people who are our families, friends, neighbours and work colleagues. They are people who, because of who they are or what they are experiencing in their lives, are made to feel like they are causing an inconvenience just by being around.
At its worst, exclusion is the deep-seated feeling that if we stop showing up it would go unnoticed. It is a difficult thing to tackle, but I think it is something we have all felt at some point in our lives. A good example is a CALD parent at a school P&C meeting who feels excluded every time they have to ask other parents to slow down in a conversation. From a government perspective, we can offer support to that parent to improve their English and we can put emphasis on the diversity of parent participation in our schools. We can make sure they have transport to attend the meeting, but we also need to work with the community to talk about how can support CALD parents to participate in their community. That is a small example of inclusion, but even this small example demonstrates that across our community and across all portfolios of government we need to work together to address the complex barriers that stop Canberrans being included in the life of our community.
Obviously government has an important role in shaping equality of outcomes in our community. We must put in place policies and resources that give us the framework for affordable housing, transport, health and education, safe and accessible public spaces and places. One of the most important ways government can support inclusion is to make sure small problems we all experience do not escalate to become long-term exclusion. While most people can handle one setback in life, a rolling series of setbacks can undermine anyone’s confidence, financial security and ability to cope. Government cannot intervene to stop the ups and downs of life, but with the right supports we can help stop those bumps that happen in all our lives becoming long-term problems.
This is what is happening under the human services blueprint. We are building a human services system that responds to a person as a whole and provides the right kind of service at the right time for the time it is needed. I am sure people in the Assembly are familiar with the initiatives under the better services umbrella; the one human services gateway, a single access point for services and supports; the strengthening families program that supports families who have complex needs and who are involved with many services; and the local services network at west Belconnen that is a model for local service delivery. The gateway is a truly human service where people work hard to make sure that others doing it tough in our community are linked up and supported to access the services they need to build the kind of security that lets them think about building community support and gives them the opportunity to contribute to their communities.
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