Page 89 - Week 01 - Tuesday, 8 February 2022
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This training needs to be developed and delivered by sexual, domestic and family violence and abuse experts including people with lived experience, cultural safety experts, disability experts, non-binary, trans and gender diverse experts.
Accordingly, I welcome the important work being undertaken by Minister Berry in her facilitation and coordination of the ACT’s sexual assault prevention and response program. I thank all those who have given their time and provided advice, expertise and feedback—all of which I have considered in great detail—and worked with legislative drafters to develop the most robust provisions to effect meaningful, positive change in the bill I am tabling today.
In closing, I would like to thank the many people and organisations who helped me on this journey to table this important piece of legislation: Victims of Crime Commissioner Ms Heidi Yates; Dr Vanita Parekh from the Canberra Hospital; Ms Chrystina Stanford of the Canberra Rape Crisis Centre; Mr Shane Drumgold, Director of Public Prosecutions; ACTCOSS; Meridian; A Gender Agenda; Advocacy for Inclusion; Women with Disabilities ACT; YWCA Canberra; DVCS; Dr Helen Watchirs, the ACT Human Rights Commissioner; Minister Yvette Berry; Minister Rattenbury; and my Labor and Greens colleagues. I also wish to thank Grace Tame, Saxon Mullins and Brittany Higgins for their support of this bill and for their tireless advocacy for change.
Finally, to victim/survivors, today will not change the past but, with every hope and with every intention I have, I introduce this bill with a view to changing the future.
Debate (on motion by Mr Rattenbury) adjourned to the next sitting.
COVID-19 pandemic—economic recovery
MS CASTLEY (Yerrabi) (3.34): I move:
That this Assembly:
(1) notes:
(a) the Chief Minister has said a sharp “V-shaped recovery” would keep the ACT economy strong after the 2021 lockdown;
(b) the outbreak of the Omicron-variant of COVID-19 has resulted in significant staff shortages across sectors, leaving many businesses unable to open and many Canberrans choosing to stay home; and
(c) despite ongoing low-level restrictions and nation-leading vaccination rates, many small businesses are experiencing the crippling effects of a shadow lockdown;
(2) further notes:
(a) the latest CommSec State of the States report and Australian Bureau of Statistics Labour Force report reveal the ACT is the second worst performing economy in the nation, has the second highest level of unemployment at 4.5 percent and recorded the second lowest retail spending in Australia (January 2022); and
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