Page 1008 - Week 03 - Thursday, 21 March 2019
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innovation. Inclusion is a choice, and today we make an important choice to take the next step in enhancing our inclusive city by joining the Welcoming Cities network.
Becoming member of the network will further support the ACT government’s commitment to celebrating our diversity and ensuring that all members of the community feel included and welcomed and have a sense of belonging, particularly our migrant and multicultural communities. Welcoming Cities actively engage with migrant communities, developing a whole-of-community approach to building social and cultural inclusion, economic engagement and civic participation. They develop comprehensive plans and active messaging for cultural diversity in policy, multi-sector engagement activities and economic development approaches. They also have networks and resources that facilitate effective planning for welcoming and inclusion.
With the support of the Assembly today, we will join 135 cities and municipalities from around the world to encourage the sharing of knowledge, celebrate in successes, facilitate the development of partnerships and look at ways to improve cultural diversity and inclusion with reference to the Welcoming Cities standard. Today we have been joined in the Legislative Assembly by Mr Aleem Ali, the CEO of Welcoming Cities. Mr Ali’s attendance at today’s Assembly and for the Harmony Day events that have been occurring today in Canberra reinforces the importance of this commitment for our city of Canberra.
One of the key aspects of becoming a welcoming city is continuously improving our approach by reference to benchmarks for Welcoming Cities as well as looking at approaches in other cities. Benchmarking assessments may be familiar to members of the ACT Legislative Assembly, as the Clerk has completed a benchmark assessment on our own parliament, using the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association benchmarks.
The Australian standard for Welcoming Cities is a key part of joining the Welcoming Cities network, as it establishes the framework for assessing our social cohesion and also allows us to celebrate our successes and identify areas for improvement. The standard allows us to benchmark the ACT’s current cultural diversity and inclusion practices and policies from which it can be identified where and how we can direct further efforts to improve social cohesion. That will allow a progressive improvement to take place over time.
Assessments may also help to compare and contrast our city to regions across the same area, side by side, and other regions around the world. It is useful to see how different jurisdictions with similar environmental, cultural and socio-economic challenges fare against one another—in this case, how welcoming our city is.
The standard is organised under six categories, including leadership; social and cultural inclusion; economic development; learning and skills development; civic participation; and places and spaces. Each category contains principles, criteria and indicators, many of which are met through collaboration with and the support of local stakeholders and the community. I know that the ACT is already addressing many elements of the standard. However, the benchmarking assessment process will no
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