Page 2492 - Week 08 - Wednesday, 29 June 2005
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a means of empowering communities to effect change and not merely to have change imposed upon them.
The process does not aim to reinvent the wheel. Instead it seeks to recognise that there are appropriate processes in place and they should be used but, where there are not, we still have work to do. This work is informed by experience, which demonstrates that education, rather than punitive action, results in better outcomes. These lessons from the criminal justice system inform our future practices and strategies in dealing with violence across our community, particularly in relation to indigenous communities. In generating a holistic application for the platform, the scope of the forum is broad and encompasses education programs, family support, resource building, training and education for young people, skills development, partnerships between the ACT government and the commonwealth government and the community sector.
The forum held earlier this week has seen, as I said, 70 people participate in what is described as “a wonderful feeling of being able to do something creative and exciting”. The process of the forum was dominated by an overwhelming sense of respect for people’s continuing culture, for their experiences and for their contributions in participation. The development of a framework to map out a program is exciting and paves the way for ongoing work, which is continuing in July.
I congratulate all those involved in the forum and look forward to following the process and recognising positive outcomes of such a collaborative and participatory event.
Petrol
DR FOSKEY (Molonglo) (6.04): I am moved to make this adjournment speech by concern about a pronouncement that was made by Mr Beazley, the shadow Prime Minister, the other day. Mr Beazley was suggesting that the government should reduce its excise duty on petrol. This, of course, is in response to ever-climbing prices of petrol, which is, again, a response to the increasing price of oil. The price is not likely to come down by very much in the very near future.
Hearing that, and feeling quite impotent that the major opposition voice in our country is not reflecting the true situation—that is, that oil is in increasingly shorter supply and it might be wise to conserve it; the role of price in that process; and the role that petrol and other oil-derived fuels play in greenhouse—took me to an article that I found in March this year where the International Energy Agency, which is the major lobby group for all the major energy resource producers around the world, has come out and proposed drastic cutbacks in car use to halt continuing oil supply problems.
Remember that a number of governments have signed on to the agreement on an international energy program. It will be very interesting to see what happens when it is decided by the International Energy Agency that it is time to implement this treaty, which the US, Japan, Germany, the United Kingdom and France have signed up to. I am not sure, but I suspect that Australia has signed up to it as well.
This organisation, which is usually advocating the profligate use of energy sources like oil—in fact, it has been saying for years, “Don’t worry; there’s plenty of it”—is now changing its tune and is advising governments that it is going to be really important to
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