Page 80 - Week 01 - Tuesday, 12 February 2019
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video
Culturally and linguistically diverse Canberrans also want help in both preserving and promoting their cultures and their languages. They want to see better support for refugees in particular but also for new migrants. They want to feel better supported when accessing health services in Canberra, including mental health services.
As I have noted in this chamber in the past, people from culturally diverse backgrounds often attach severe stigma to mental illness and can be reluctant to access health services. Data demonstrates that these people have significantly lower levels of access to mental health care and support in the wider community, shifting the burden of responsibility onto family members, who often lack the adequate training or support to cope. It is my hope, and the hope of many Canberrans, that this government will do a better job of supporting the territory’s multicultural community.
MR STEEL (Murrumbidgee—Minister for City Services, Minister for Community Services and Facilities, Minister for Multicultural Affairs and Minister for Roads) (3.53): I am pleased to speak on the importance of supporting Canberra’s multicultural community. Inclusion is a choice that our government has made to make sure that Canberra is an inclusive city. And we do that in a range of ways throughout the year: most visibly through the upcoming Multicultural Festival, Australia’s largest multicultural festival. The maze of white tents and colourful bunting heralds the annual National Multicultural Festival, and in 2019 the festival will mark 23 years of operations as thousands of Canberrans, visitors from across the nation and the globe gather in our city centre to celebrate the cultural diversity of our city and the world.
On top of 150 performances across the three days, festival attendees will enjoy over 300 food, drink and information stalls from Friday lunchtime until late Sunday afternoon. The weather is forecast to be very good for the weekend, with late summer conditions, and we are expecting tens of thousands of visitors to flock into the city centre to enjoy the fun. Each year the festival provides a platform for our diverse multicultural communities to proudly and loudly stake their claim to a share of the Australian story. And this event is a visible statement of how important cultural diversity is to our city’s identity.
Reflecting this, our government is proud to reaffirm our commitment to growing this much-loved event, with a commitment in the budget review of $1.968 million during the next three financial years, ensuring the viability of the annual National Multicultural Festival for years to come. The funding will provide ongoing support for staff and incremental improvements in the lead-up to the 25th anniversary of the festival in 2021. These improvements include a more streamlined approach to the festival’s management and the increased focus on public safety in an era of global uncertainty. Through this funding, our government believes we can ensure that the festival has an important role in the future of our city.
While the annual festival is one of the most anticipated weekends on Canberra’s event calendar and a reflection of our city’s multiculturalism, it is the efforts throughout the year of our multicultural communities that really display the importance that we in our city place on celebrating our cultural diversity. And many of those events are supported by the ACT government, including through our multicultural participation
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video