Page 2371 - Week 07 - Tuesday, 30 July 2019
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Put simply, this is an amazing and exciting policy that people want to know more about. I look forward to knowing more, and I hope this recommendation brings forward more information as soon as possible.
Finally, recommendation 188 states:
The Committee recommends that the ACT Government expand Common Ground Gungahlin to the maximum capacity that can be accommodated on the site.
Gungahlin loves Common Ground. One of the highlights of the town centre is seeing the local residents walking about and interacting. I think Gungahlin will be improved, will be a better place, with more Common Ground accommodation.
MS LE COUTEUR (Murrumbidgee) (10.56): I want to start off my speech by thanking the principal committee secretary, Annemieke, and the cast of thousands of committee secretaries helping with this. I thank my fellow committee members for their hard work, patience and wonderful recommendations. There are 207 recommendations this year, which is not a record but still a goodly number. I would like to particularly also thank the witnesses. I understand that over 200 people appeared before us. In particular, I would like to thank the community groups who came and gave us a different perspective on what is happening in Canberra; that is really important.
As I said, there are 207 recommendations. I will not bore anybody by reading them all out, but, as with the previous two speakers, there are some that I feel are more important. They are all worthy, but some are more worthy. There were some real highlights.
Mr Barr: Some more worthy than others.
MS LE COUTEUR: As far as recommendations go, yes; some are more worthy. I will start off with recommendation 6, for Mr Barr, because it deals with grant funding. This was echoed in recommendation 27. It is talking about providing financial certainty for community organisations. In particular, I want to mention Landcare ACT. Recommendation 5 is particularly about Landcare; recommendation 27 is about community organisations in general. The theme is very clear: community organisations, to do their job well, need much better financial certainty. This is particularly true where they have paid staff. We have a situation where the ACT government enshrines insecure employment because it funds things for such a short term that that is the only sort of employment there can be.
Going to recommendation 9, I would like to point out that recommendation 9, about the access advisory council, is associated with a workload already, as mentioned in recommendations 7 and 8, which are about footpaths and ramps, which are not as good as they could be.
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