Page 2895 - Week 07 - Thursday, 7 June 2012
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The committee also made a number of recommendations in relation to the evaluation of existing programs such as the Office for Women’s return to work grants. It is essential that the government tries to learn what programs provide ongoing benefits to participants and why. The committee noted that significant developments such as the equal pay Fair Work Australia decision and the implementation of the national disability insurance scheme will have an effect on the ACT and should be monitored in future annual reports.
On behalf of the committee I thank ministers, departmental officials and agency representatives for their time and cooperation during the course of the inquiry. I would also like to thank my colleagues on the committee, deputy chair Ms Amanda Bresnan from the Greens and Mr John Hargreaves from the Labor Party, as well as recent past members of the committee Dr Chris Bourke and Ms Mary Porter, both Labor representatives, for their respective contributions to committee deliberations.
I would particularly like to express my personal thanks and those of my committee colleagues for the contributions made by the secretariat—the support provided by Ms Grace Concannon, Mr Andrew Snedden, Mr Trevor Rowe and our latest committee secretary, Ms Kate Harkins. Grace Concannon, who has been with the committee since 2008, was seconded to the CIT late last year and her shoes have been particularly hard to fill at short notice. Our thanks go to Kate Harkins for the way she has taken on the difficult task of coming in at the eleventh hour and providing such excellent support over the past two months.
MS BRESNAN (Brindabella) (5.26): Madam Deputy Speaker, I will be brief. I want to thank Mr Doszpot for his chairing of this committee and these hearings and I also thank Mr Hargreaves for his contribution. Like Mr Doszpot, I would like to thank the committee secretaries. As Mr Doszpot said, we have gone through a number of secretaries to this committee, and it is difficult to come in and take over when there has been that change. They have all done a great job. Kate in particular, who is now doing the work, has done an excellent job in putting this report together. All the committee members would thank her for doing that, as Mr Doszpot already has.
I will speak very briefly to a couple of the recommendations. Mr Doszpot has already spoken about some of the issues we raised about consultation processes and the like. A couple of recommendations have been made about FirstPoint, recommendations 12 and 13. It is the system that has been set up by the Community Services Directorate, Housing ACT, as a central access point for people who are accessing different types of housing, particularly people in emergency need.
Recommendation 12 is about including data from FirstPoint in annual reports. That includes the number of people not provided with accommodation upon contacting FirstPoint. There have been some concerns expressed. There were questions raised during the annual reports process, and some questions were raised through the social housing inquiry that was undertaken by this committee. There were concerns that people who might be contacting FirstPoint are not always being referred on to the type of services that might be appropriate for them. That includes youth and mental health services.
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