Page 202 - Week 01 - Wednesday, 12 February 2020
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The course at CIT ended in 2015. I am going to accept Mr Gentleman’s amendment but, as with many things in this place, he is trying to make it a federal government issue. The ACT used to provide these courses at the CIT and now the government is trying to say that it is the federal government’s problem to find more level 3 interpreters here. It is a shifting of blame, a shifting of cost. It is those opposite abrogating all responsibility for their own residents, their own citizens, their own ratepayers and taxpayers, if you like.
You are dismissing our colleagues, our friends, our family members and saying it is someone else’s problem to provide interpreters. I just do not think that that is good enough. But in the interests of getting something on record, of getting a result, of trying to get action to make sure we do not have to go through this over and over again, I am accepting of Mr Gentleman’s amendment and Ms Le Couteur’s amendment, despite this reference, for example, to the federal government, despite the fact that Mr Gentleman in (1)(f) of his amendment is trying to make it look like they chose to start providing interpreters following the announcement of the state of alert on 2 January. I disagree. I believe that, as a result of complaints from the deaf community, they then realised they should be providing interpreters.
This is not the place to quibble over the how or why, because I want the what. I want the result and the outcome for our friends, our colleagues, our family members here in the ACT who are deaf and use Auslan as their primary language. Whatever it takes, can we just do it? Can we get on with it? Can we make sure it happens without them having to feel like they are complaining? They feel that they are treated like they are whingeing although, under local, national and international law and other articles like the United Nations Convention on the Rights of People with Disability, communication access is a right under the UNCRPD. Why it is so hard for this government to do it as a matter of course, I simply do not understand.
What I do understand is that the decisions they have made in the past are coming back to haunt them. The saddest part about that is that not only are you now seeing the results of your short-sighted decisions in the past but some members of our community, some vulnerable members of our community, may be the ones who suffer as a result. I find that appalling, and I ask you—I beg you—to make sure that this type of oversight does not happen in the future.
Ms Lawder’s amendments to Ms Le Couteur’s proposed amendment to Mr Gentleman’s proposed amendment agreed to.
Ms Le Couteur’s amendment, as amended, to Mr Gentleman’s proposed amendment be agreed to.
Mr Gentleman’s amendment, as amended, agreed to.
Original question, as amended, resolved in the affirmative.
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