Page 2375 - Week 08 - Tuesday, 12 August 2014
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The government will continue to deliver other key community engagement events, such as the monthly Australian citizenship ceremonies and the annual Ramadan and Diwali receptions. We will continue our community consultation process in the lead-up to the multicultural summit to be held later this year to set the ACT multicultural framework for the next four years. The government will continue to provide secretariat support to the strategic policy committees such as the refugee, asylum seeker and humanitarian entrant coordination committee, and manage support programs such as the free overseas qualifications assessments service and the ACT services access card.
Our city has a rich cultural diversity and as a government we are committed to supporting and continuing to grow this diverse and accepting community.
I would also like to speak briefly on women, which is an area that I am responsible for. Canberra continues to be a place that supports women and girls in all areas of life—at school, at work and as part of our community—to maintain the services and supports that they require. The ACT women’s plan sets out the government’s vision for working with the whole community to improve the status and lives of women and girls in our community.
A Picture of women in the ACT was released in November last year, which showed how the ACT is faring compared to the rest of Australia. The report showed that the ACT continues to have a relatively low gender pay gap, with men on average earning 14.7 per cent more than women compared to the national average of 17.5 per cent. So clearly there is still some way to go.
Under the women’s plan sit a range of direct actions. For example, the annual women’s grants provide financial assistance to groups and organisations to develop activities that improve the status of women and girls in the ACT. A total of $135,000 in funding is available, which includes the Audrey Fagan violence prevention projects, the young women’s enrichment grants, the women’s leadership program and the Audrey Fagan scholarship program.
Additionally, the ACT government continues to provide financial assistance of $1,000 to women re-entering the workforce through the return to work grants program. Within the next few months we expect the 1,000th grant to be offered, and that will mean a $1 million investment in local women to help them return to work over the past six years.
The government remains committed to the prevention of violence against women and children strategy 2011-17. The strategy has strong links to the national plan to reduce violence against women and their children, with the shared goal of reducing and ending violence against women and children.
The purpose of the strategy is to involve the whole community in upholding and respecting the rights of women to live a life free from the fear and experience of violence. It provides four primary objectives: women and children are safe because an anti-violence culture exists in the ACT; Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women and children are supported and safe in their communities; women and children’s
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