Page 55 - Week 01 - Tuesday, 13 December 2016
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MS STEPHEN-SMITH: I thank Ms Lee for her supplementary question. Some specialist staff in the ACT government have been retained under the child development service and others have left the employment of the ACT government and have either set up in private practice or have done other things with their lives. Again, I cannot give you exact numbers at this point. I am happy to take that on notice if you would like.
MRS KIKKERT: Minister, are there currently enough sufficiently experienced disability and therapy service providers in the ACT?
MS STEPHEN-SMITH: I thank Mrs Kikkert for her supplementary question. The government understands that workforce issues are an ongoing challenge in the disability sector and in the therapy sector and allied health across the board. One of the things we are focused on in the rest of the rollout of the NDIS is workforce development. If you just give me one second, I might even have some detail on that.
A wide variety of resources have been made available to support disability service providers to transition to the NDIS, as I said earlier, and the government has worked with a number of individual therapists as they have transitioned out of Therapy ACT and Disability ACT to become service providers in the sector.
ACT Emergency Services Agency—funding
MS ORR: My question is to the Minister for Police and Emergency Services. Minister, what measures is the government taking to keep our community safe and to respond effectively to emergencies?
MR GENTLEMAN: I thank Ms Orr for her question and her new role in the Assembly. The government is committed to keeping our community safe. As a government, we are committed to ensuring that Canberrans are safe. They want to feel safe, of course, and know that if the worse should happen, then help will arrive.
One of the best ways to do this is to support our hard-working emergency services personnel, from police officers to paramedics, to firefighters, to our volunteers in the Rural Fire Service and State Emergency Service. By ensuring that our personnel have the training, equipment and support they need, this government is ensuring the safety of our community.
That is why the government has committed to a significant program of measures through our election commitments and parliamentary agreement items. In the coming months and years this government will be putting more firefighters and more state-of-the-art firefighting appliances on the road. We will be putting more paramedics on the road.
We will be supporting our police. In particular, we will be ensuring that police can effectively combat outlaw motorcycle gangs and we will be ensuring that police can contribute to a society-wide effort to prevent and respond to family violence.
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