Page 3233 - Week 10 - Thursday, 17 September 2015
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that there will be a further collection campaign starting from April next year and I look forward to again collecting sanitary products in the Legislative Assembly on behalf of Share the Dignity. I recommend this charity to members of the Legislative Assembly.
I particularly want to pay tribute to the members and staff of the Assembly who were extraordinarily generous. I know that some staff went to their male members of the Assembly and senior male people who may find it a little bit difficult to go to a chemist shop or a supermarket and buy such products. They took up a collection and went and purchased very large amounts. But I also pay tribute to those men in the building who manned up, so to speak, and went and made purchases directly.
I think it made people think about the little things that we often put to the back of our mind when we are dealing with homelessness and also to think that these are expensive products. Every time someone purchases these things or makes a donation to a charity, that is money the charity does not have to fork out and that money saved can be put to other services. It is a good, worthwhile and very practical application for our charity dollar and I commend Share the Dignity for taking on board this important work.
Involve
MS FITZHARRIS (Molonglo) (4.35): I am pleased to rise this afternoon to speak about a wonderful event I attended last week on behalf of Minister Burch, the launch of phase 2 of Involve—Canberra’s disability commitment. Canberra is a proud human rights jurisdiction committed to implementing the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, the CRPD, and the national disability strategy 2010-2020. The CRPD and the national disability strategy demand us to take action to promote, protect and ensure the full and equal enjoyment of the rights and freedoms of all people with disability.
We have consulted with people with disability and the community and they have told us to aim high and become a world leader in social and economic participation for people with a disability. People told us we need to acknowledge the contribution made by people with a disability, put people with a disability at the centre of decision-making about their lives and shift the emphasis from barriers and exclusion to shared responsibility, opportunities and action.
With that in mind, on behalf of the minister, I launched the second stage of Involve last Friday to connect people who have an ambition to make the world better in big ways or small. Involve highlights how our community can work together to create a place where all people with disability are included and supported. It is a great initiative that seeks to engage all Canberrans to include people with disability and support them to make their dreams a reality.
Fundamentally, Involve is a movement of people with and without disability, community organisations, industry and government acting together to achieve change that empowers people with disability. It is a space for people to come together and connect, support one another and generate ideas for an inclusive community. Through
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