Page 821 - Week 03 - Wednesday, 20 March 2019
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use ACT government support on offer to provide better support to people with disability.
The multicultural participation grants promote cultural diversity, social harmony and inclusion initiatives which would apply to people of CALD backgrounds with disability.
Through the 2016-17 participation multicultural grants round, funding was provided to People with Disabilities ACT to facilitate community engagement with people from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds. On 4 April 2018 People with Disabilities ACT hosted a forum on disability and multiculturalism. At this forum it was noted that there was no organisation in the ACT to specifically advocate for people with disability from CALD backgrounds, as Ms Lee has noted. PWDACT undertook to commence work with existing organisations in the CALD community space to advocate for this population and cohort.
The ACT government strongly believes that it is critical to ensure that people with disability are in a strong position to advocate on issues that are crucial to their lives. This is why we established the disability reference group, in addition to the peak organisations, to guide the ACT government’s continued implementation of the national disability strategy 2010-2020. Membership of this group has included culturally and linguistically diverse people living with disability.
In my former role as Minister for Multicultural Affairs I appointed Mr Darryl Alexander as the peak community representative to the ACT Multicultural Advisory Council. On the Multicultural Advisory Council Mr Alexander represents the interests of People with Disabilities ACT and advises on matters affecting people from a CALD background who identify as having disability.
One of the things that we have really tried to do across our advisory councils is to ensure that there is cross-representation and intersectional representation so that the Multicultural Advisory Council is considering issues from the point of view of people with disability, and the disability reference group is getting input from people from culturally and linguistically diverse communities and other communities such as Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities to ensure that all of our policies are consistently informed by a broad grassroots section of the community.
The ACT government acknowledges the barriers faced by those experiencing intersectional disadvantage, including CALD people living with disability. We are happy to commit to ensuring that the existing disability advocacy, inclusion and multicultural participation avenues and grants are able to support the needs of Canberrans from a CALD background living with disability.
However, it is not appropriate for this Assembly to require, through a motion, the expenditure of funds on a specific program and, while Ms Lee’s motion is drafted in a way to say that this needs to be done by June, it is very clear that what she means is that it should be done through the budget. Therefore, I move the amendment circulated in my name which would call on the government to ensure that disability
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