Page 749 - Week 03 - Tuesday, 17 March 2015
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young people with disability. Our whole community benefits when we have high levels of economic participation by people with disability. Studies have shown that employees with a disability take fewer days off and have a higher retention rate than other employees.
In 2016-17 we propose to focus on access to justice, accessible communities and improving health outcomes for people with a disability. We will continue to work towards an accessible, responsive and affordable transport system, welcoming accessible social and cultural activities and inclusive health services. We will uphold our strong human rights record and focus on achieving equal access to justice in the area of guardianship and supported decision-making, and find better ways of addressing the over-representation of people with a disability as victims and perpetrators of crime. As the late Stella Young said:
I want to live in a world where we don’t have such low expectations of disabled people, that we are congratulated for getting out of bed and remembering our own names in the morning. I want to live in a world where we value genuine achievement for disabled people.
That is from the late, ever-remembered Stella Young. This government sees a future community where we all have high expectations of what people with disability can achieve. The ACT disability inclusion statement will create an online campaign to drive collaborative efforts across Canberra towards the vision for social inclusion and equality. We will shift the emphasis from barriers and exclusion to action and shared responsibility. The campaign will be centred on what is possible for people with disability. We will be looking to recruit inclusion champions to promote and achieve inclusion and equality for all.
We want to bring business and the community with us to achieve this social movement of inclusion and equality. We have had early success with this kind of approach with the ACT Inclusion Council, which comprises business, government and community leaders. We will reach out to members of the Assembly, business and the leaders in the community to become inclusion champions. We welcome policy discussions on how best to achieve an inclusive Canberra community. Separately, we can only achieve small gains for people with a disability but collectively the possibilities are endless.
We will start a policy discussion on the ACT disability inclusion statement—its visions, priorities, implementation principles, governance arrangements, evaluation framework and underpinning campaign methodology—in April of this year. We are aiming to deliver the inclusion statement in the middle of this year.
We will have a bold and ambitious agenda through the disability inclusion statement that will enable people with disability to achieve their goals. We are ready to build a united movement of people with disability, families, government, community and business that will work towards a more inclusive and equal society.
I present the following paper:
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