Page 3061 - Week 08 - Thursday, 15 August 2019
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I was a bit disappointed to hear Mrs Kikkert’s comments in relation to the Welcoming Cities network membership. That was a commitment by this Assembly. The Assembly supported, in a tripartisan way, a motion moved by the Chief Minister to become a member of the network. It is not a particularly controversial thing to have the aspiration to become a welcoming city for all people, and particularly newly arrived migrants, refugees and other people. It is something that is a starting point for a really deep conversation with the community about how we support people to be welcomed in our community, to feel included, to feel like they belong, as well as what supports and services we provide to them currently and what we can do to improve on that, in consultation with those communities and also with reference to what is happening in other jurisdictions, other Welcoming Cities in Australia and around the world.
It was very disappointing to hear Mrs Kikkert say that, because when she made her speech in relation to the motion on 21 March she said that the Canberra Liberals welcomed the ACT’s membership of the Welcoming Cities network and she commended the motion to the Assembly. For her to come in to this place today, during the debate, and criticise the Assembly’s commitment to become a member of the Welcoming Cities network is incredibly disappointing for the stature of our city, especially when we have already embarked on the work we need to do to benchmark ourselves against the standard, which will be a very important piece of work, and one that she should pay attention to, because it will help to outline what we need to do as a city to become more welcoming and inclusive in the future.
The multicultural framework action plan also contains initiatives to ensure that information for people from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds, including newly arrived Canberrans, is readily available and promoted. Procurement is nearing completion for the delivery of a welcome to Canberra information pack, which I mentioned in question time, which will be provided to newly arrived Canberrans and will complement the existing settlement services.
We will also continue to deliver the existing and very popular workforce participation assistance program, in partnership with the community organisations, which the government committed funding to in the 2018-19 budget. As part of the commitment, Multicultural Employment Services was granted funding to work with other ACT and regional settlement services to provide individual, case-managed employment support to refugees living in the ACT who are unable to find employment, ACT services access cardholders, asylum seekers residing in the ACT on bridging visas with work rights, and people residing in the ACT from non-English-speaking backgrounds. This enhances the services provided by Job Active to ensure that all clients understand their work rights and entitlements.
Similarly, last year Migrant and Refugee Settlement Services was contracted to deliver three English language programs for refugees and asylum seekers on bridging visas and ACT services access cardholders living in the ACT.
In addition to this range of services, this year the ACT government will continue to support the community through our many grants and awards, including those catering
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