Page 1144 - Week 04 - Tuesday, 2 April 2019
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Progressive governments also recognise the key role that community services play in making our city more inclusive. That is why we are investing in renewing our community facilities. Woden has seen work commence on a new community centre. We have started by bringing agencies from across government together to consider the options for a future community centre, in consultation with the community.
As Woden’s regeneration continues, a community centre in the town centre to meet the future needs of the area is a priority for me. I have heard from the community that we particularly need to look at how we improve the availability of space for events, the arts, meetings and other community activities. As we invest in Woden, we are also starting work on the needs of the Gungahlin community to ensure fair access to community facilities across the city.
I am so proud to live in our inclusive, progressive and connected city. Inclusion is a choice and we choose to welcome migrant and multicultural communities in Canberra. The ACT government is working to build a socially cohesive community where all members of the community feel included and welcomed and have a sense of belonging, particularly our migrant and multicultural communities.
I am very pleased that, during the last sitting in this chamber, on Harmony Day we were able to join the Welcoming Cities network, with the support of all members here. It is an important next step for Canberra to continue to grow as an inclusive place, particularly for our migrant and multicultural communities, joining 135 cities and municipalities from around the world, learning from one another, and sharing best practice approaches and models. Our membership will also enable us to undertake a benchmarking assessment of ourselves against the Welcoming Cities standards, which will provide and identify practical actions that we can take to improve inclusion in our city.
As I mentioned earlier, the ACT government, through the Multicultural Advisory Council, hosted the 2018 ACT multicultural summit in November, delivering on our election commitment and the parliamentary agreement. As a result of the highly successful summit, the ACT Multicultural Advisory Council is taking a lead role in formulating the second action plan under the ACT multicultural framework 2015-20, a plan that will take us into the beginning of the next decade and prepare us for the future beyond 2020 as well. We will also continue to enhance our Multicultural Festival, with the new funding secured over three years in the budget review, to celebrate our diversity in Canberra’s most loved and well-attended event.
Canberrans expect the ACT government to lead with progressive policies and to invest in the infrastructure our growing city needs. Canberrans have benefited from these investments being fair and being inclusive. The ACT government’s priorities within my portfolios of responsibility will be to deliver an even fairer and more inclusive city, a city that continues to be Australia’s most livable, with even better services. I present the following paper:
Statement of Priorities—Ministerial statement, 2 April 2019.
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