Page 2671 - Week 08 - Tuesday, 15 August 2017
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government. It begs the question what other numbers have been fudged in this budget.
I can tell you one other number that does not add up, and that is the employment numbers in the ACT public service. The 2008 COAG Indigenous employment strategy committed this government to a target of three per cent of Indigenous employment in the sector by 2018. It is now 2017 but, to date, Indigenous employment in the ACT public service is 1.4 per cent of the total workforce. This very low number was revealed after a question on notice was submitted.
It was disturbing to note during the estimates hearings that the Deputy Director-General, Workforce Capability and Governance, who is also the ACT Public Sector Standards Commissioner, was unable to answer a direct question on the proportion of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people currently employed in the ACT public service or to state the target agreed to by the ACT government. It shows a lack of interest and desire to make a difference in the lives of Indigenous Canberrans by this government.
The committee noted that there was an overall lack of transparency in relation to the proportion of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people currently employed in the ACT public service, not in each individual directorate but across them all. Information received from each of the directorates shows that the Chief Minister’s directorate has the lowest Indigenous employment of them all.
We agree with the committee’s recommendation and call on the ACT government to table in the Assembly by the end of August 2017 the proportion of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples in the ACT public service and targets for that employment for each directorate as well as across the whole service.
MR RAMSAY (Ginninderra—Attorney-General, Minister for Regulatory Services, Minister for the Arts and Community Events and Minister for Veterans and Seniors) (12.15): The 2017-18 financial year will see the government continue to provide ACT residents with a one-stop shop for ACT government services, a “no wrong door” approach to make it easier and more efficient for businesses, community organisations and individuals to get their business done in the territory while ensuring that community safety is preserved.
Since Access Canberra’s inception, its success has been evident through the feedback from customers, with an increase in its customer satisfaction metrics again this year. This is not accidental. The government, through Access Canberra, is committed to providing an exceptional “one service, one experience” journey for the people of Canberra. I am committed to ensuring that interacting with government, through Access Canberra, continues to be easier and simpler. In this budget we are building on this success by continuing to make it easier for Canberrans to engage with the government by increasing the number of services available online. Access Canberra is continually developing digital services for customers to use, and aims to add a further 75 digital transactions in 2017-18. We will also implement a new centralised complaints management system for Access Canberra, leading to better end-to-end tracking of complaints and a higher quality of data being retained. This will give the
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