Page 3951 - Week 11 - Wednesday, 20 September 2017
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declaration built on existing ACT government programs and initiatives which demonstrate our support for and raise further awareness about the issues affecting Canberrans from refugee and humanitarian backgrounds.
Another part of our commitments to Canberrans from refugee and asylum seeker backgrounds has been to address barriers to economic participation by facilitating pathways into training and the security of a job. The ACT government continues its efforts to engage more employers in supporting potential employees from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds, particularly refugee and asylum seeker backgrounds, through the programs delivered directly by ACT government directorates and agencies such as Skills Canberra and through our community-based partners. In March this year the ACT government announced it had expanded the eligibility criteria for the Australian apprenticeships and skilled capital programs to automatically include Canberrans from refugee and asylum seeker backgrounds on temporary and bridging visas, giving them greater employment opportunities in our skill shortage areas.
In the budget the ACT government committed $1.4 million over four years for new migrants to improve their English language skills through expanding English language programs and for refugees and asylum seekers to enter the workforce with the assistance of a job brokerage service. The ACT government works closely with communities themselves, service providers and stakeholders to ensure that people arriving and living in the ACT are able to connect to, contribute to and participate in the Canberra community. For example, the ACT government’s work experience and support program helps Canberrans from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds to enter the workforce through on-the-job training placements.
We continue to look for better ways to engage and support Canberrans from refugee and asylum seeker backgrounds and to give practical effect to our refugee welcome zone commitment. We are a city that has warmly welcomed and embraced over 2,000 people from refugee and asylum seeker backgrounds during the past decade, an achievement we all can be proud of. It is essential for us, as a government and as a community, to collectively draw upon the knowledge and capacity of these people and continue to set an example for the rest of the nation in how culturally and linguistically diverse communities can flourish and strengthen all members of the community. This is especially the case at a time when we see the federal Liberal government proposing such retrograde changes to the citizenship test for new migrants.
It is with this in mind that I wish to reaffirm the ACT government’s commitment to providing a safe and welcoming environment, inclusive of all people, regardless of their race, religion and ethnicity. I feel passionately about this issue not because we are a perfect community but rather because of the potential of what we can be as a city. We are stronger as a community when we stand together, when we embrace diversity, when we address disadvantage, when we continuously improve our support for social inclusion, when we provide genuine opportunities to enable all Canberrans to reach their full potential. That is why the ACT government continues to invest in services and initiatives that tackle barriers to participation and deliver better support for people with disability.
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