Page 2205 - Week 06 - Thursday, 7 June 2018
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guidelines to support the development of new facilities, and the modification of existing facilities, to be more accessible for female participants.
The women sport and recreation participation and leadership program was introduced this year. It provides $100,000 each year for four years to provide assistance to eligible parties to support greater participation opportunities for women and girls, and for women to take on leadership roles in the sector.
There is also new investment in this year’s budget specifically focused on delivering key actions in the women’s plan to see stronger promotion and realisation of gender equality. The additional investment provides $696,000 and will support and bolster the work of the office for women and the delivery of the women’s action plan right across the ACT government.
MS CODY: Minister, how will this additional funding assist with driving gender equality in the ACT?
MS BERRY: I thank Ms Cody for the supplementary. The additional funding will assist the ACT government to continue its strong focus on building an even more inclusive and equitable community that ensures all Canberrans have equal opportunities to participate actively in the things they want. We know our community wants desperately to see greater equality—in fact, more than any other jurisdiction in the country, when you consider the recent vote on marriage equality.
The additional funding will specifically assist with: support for the office for women to undertake more and better community engagement activities to promote gender equality; improving the evidence base relating to gender equality, noting that we are doing a great deal of research, story and data gathering right now as we progress to the full suite of actions under the women’s plan while not losing sight of this evidence and ensuring it is widely accessible into the future; training to reduce and eliminate unconscious bias across government; promoting diversity on boards through the diversity register which was launched just last week—and I encourage members in this place to share it with their networks to get more people registered; and delivering a board traineeship program for women.
Importantly, it ensures that the office for women is better resourced and given greater ability to work across government with each and every government directorate to drive and deliver the commitments we have made around this issue. This investment will also assist the broader community, including businesses and community not-for-profit organisations, by providing additional tools to better address gender inequality in our spheres of influence.
MS CHEYNE: Minister, what is the next step for the delivery of the remainder of the actions in the women’s action plan?
MS BERRY: I thank Ms Cheyne for her question. As I said we will be releasing in coming weeks more details around our delivery of actions already. You will be able to see what we have underway and what actions are coming up. The additional investment made through the 2018-19 budget will allow the office to get stuck into
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