Page 2156 - Week 07 - Tuesday, 2 August 2022

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MR HANSON: Minister, how will senior nurses leaving and reducing their hours affect the placement of students at the hospital and the workforce of the future?

MS STEPHEN-SMITH: I thank Mr Hanson for the question. This is, of course, an ongoing topic of conversation. In fact, just the other day I had a conversation with the Calvary Regional CEO about clinical placements. Clinical placements for both nurses and midwives are a really important part of ensuring that we can grow our workforce. I was pleased to hear that Calvary is working very closely with the University of Canberra, particularly around our midwifery student clinical placements, to grow our midwife workforce. In terms of graduate recruitment at Canberra Health Services, I can advise that the Canberra Health Services RN graduate workforce recruitment number was 88 in 2021 and in 2022 it was 116. So we are clearly able to take on those graduates.

There has also been a lot of work done to bring students into the workforce mix, both through clinical placements and through the new student nurse and midwife classification that was introduced into the enterprise agreement with the update of the enterprise agreement last year. That initially was around ensuring that we could bring nursing students and other students into the vaccination workforce but also enable them to transition into the wider frontline healthcare workforce. The chief nurse and midwife is working with the union at the moment to develop the descriptions for those positions so that those students can come into the workforce and perform at their maximum scope of practice.

Arts—government investment

MR PETTERSSON: Thank you Madam Speaker. My question is for the Minister for the Arts. Minister, how is the ACT government investing in ACT arts, culture and creative sector?

MS CHEYNE: Thank you Madam Speaker, and I thank Mr Pettersson for the question. Last week I released a suite of initiatives, including the ACT government’s Arts, Culture and Creative Policy, which provides the roadmap to achieve the ambition for Canberra to be recognised as Australia’s arts capital.

The policy is accompanied by an action plan which outlines activities, both ongoing initiatives and targeted discrete projects, to deliver on the ambition, as well as Remuneration Principles and Practices for Artists and Arts Workers to promote fair remuneration for artists and arts workers.

Following extensive consultation with the community, our new Arts Organisation Investment Program framework and guidelines have also been released, with applications now open for arts organisations to apply for funding for up to five years.

It will also specifically provide an opportunity for new arts organisation entrants that are meeting community needs to apply for funding.

I am pleased to inform the Assembly that through the Budget, the annual funding envelope for arts organisations will increase by around ten per cent, providing an


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