Page 2257 - Week 07 - Wednesday, 3 August 2016
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improve the hiring of a range of government-owned or managed assets, and I am sure we can all do our bit to support this. If there are specific examples, I am more than happy to try to facilitate them.
In the previous discussion, Ms Berry referred to the fact that we have just been able to assist the Woden Dodgers basketball group to start using courts at Deakin high in a collaborative relationship between active Canberra and the Education Directorate to free up the space there. I note that there are many other schools across Canberra that are already used by a range of community organisations. But if there are particular barriers or groups that are struggling to find a place, I am quite happy to try to help them out specifically. It is important that we make the best possible use of our government assets so that as many people in the community as possible can seek to access them.
Ms Berry has already commented about the land issues. In relation to access to land, it is not my portfolio area but we need to have a really clear and transparent process so that people can access it in a way that is perfectly understandable to everybody and even-handed to the range of groups that may be seeking to access land. I do not have a lot to add on that one other than that general principle that it should be made available. It has been a great feature of Canberra’s history that groups have been able to access blocks of land through time. We have community facilities and land for exactly that purpose and I hope that is something we can continue to support in Canberra, because it does help organisations get a foothold and provide to their community a facility that is suitable.
With those few remarks, let me say that I will be supporting Ms Berry’s amendment. I appreciate the very important point that has been brought forward today and I am very happy to support the broad tenor of the point that Mrs Jones made in her motion.
MRS JONES (Molonglo) (4.47): I will address the amendment and close. Having now had a chance to look at the amendment, I thank the government for all the work that they have been doing in the area of new Canberrans and new Australians and refugees. I think we all support that.
With regard to the amendment, I will seek that, at the time we move them, we deal with the beginning through to (2)(a) together and simply deal with (2)(b) as a separate matter, because I think there is a lot of common ground here.
With regard to Ms Berry’s remarks, the multicultural framework is obviously an important document, and I absolutely agree that the Theo Notaras centre and other community assets are very important in this space. We have all been to cultural functions held in school halls and I welcome Mr Rattenbury’s collaborative approach on that because there probably is more that can be done in that space. It is worth remembering that these communities do not always know how to start a conversation on things like that and our Office of Multicultural Affairs does work in that space.
It is important to note, though, that ultimately multicultural faith communities have a strong desire, which should be part of their basic respected human rights, to worship in a space which is appropriate for that worship. I remember that when our local priest
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