Page 4815 - Week 13 - Wednesday, 1 November 2017
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ACT would be aware of the community expectation that smoking in public transport waiting areas is prohibited.
Enforcement of the law is the responsibility of authorised Access Canberra officers, who will undertake compliance activities relating to smoke-free legislation. They favour an educative approach in preventing smoking in public transport waiting areas. Officers will retain their discretion to issue an infringement notice to people found to be smoking. A minimum fine of $110 may be issued to people found smoking in a smoke-free area.
Evaluation studies of the implementation of smoke-free legislation overwhelmingly report that compliance is high and that these laws are effective in improving air quality and reducing community exposure to second-hand smoke. The creation of smoke-free transport waiting areas aligns with the national tobacco strategy 2012 to 2018 and assists to improve the health of all Australians by reducing the prevalence of smoking and its associated health and social costs.
Aboriginals and Torres Strait Islanders—educational targets
MR MILLIGAN: My question is to Minister for Education and Early Childhood Development Minister, the recent report into Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander outcomes in Canberra schools shows that Indigenous students continue to be two-to-three years behind their peers in NAPLAN, with little improvement recorded in reading or numeracy since the standardised test was introduced in 2008. It notes that the ACT will likely also fail to meet the COAG Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander student attendance target of 90 per cent and its own target of 92 per cent. Minister, when can the ACT expect to see Indigenous students’ attendance meet the targets?
MS BERRY: As the Assembly will know, the ACT government is embarking right now on a conversation with the community on the future of education. Already, over 2,500 individuals have contributed to that conversation, including the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander community, to address the issues around inequity and inequality within schools in the ACT.
The independent schools and the Catholic schools have also been part of that conversation. We want to make sure that as a community the outcomes for all students, regardless of their backgrounds, where they come from or their family circumstances do not hold them back from having the same opportunities as every other student in the ACT.
With regard to NAPLAN, one of the themes that has been coming up through the future of education conversation is that the community needs to consider whether schools should continue to be places of assessment and whether the focus should be on schools being places of learning.
Mr Wall: Point of order, Madam Speaker.
MADAM SPEAKER: Point of order.
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