Page 478 - Week 02 - Wednesday, 17 February 2016
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Concessions for Pensioner Concession Card and Seniors Card Holders and their neglect of low-income earners;
(b) continue to provide support for low-income Canberrans, including through the ACT Concessions Program and the provision of high quality health, education and community services; and
(c) take into account input provided by the community to the November 2015 discussion paper and continue to explore options to make the ACT Concessions Program fairer, in order to ensure Canberrans who most need help continue to receive assistance.”.
As a Labor government, we believe in supporting Canberrans who need a helping hand. We believe in ensuring that Canberrans in need and vulnerable and disadvantaged Canberrans have access to concessions for essential services and transport. We also believe in ensuring that all Canberrans have access to high-quality education, health and community services. We also believe every member of the community should be able to contribute to society to the fullest extent possible. This may shock some opposite who believe, in fact, in cutting funding to schools and hospitals.
But supporting a community goes beyond just a concessions program, as important as that is. It also involves delivering high-quality services and facilities for our community: community health centres, quality public schools, culturally appropriate assistance for our Indigenous communities, better transport, and better public transport systems. These are all examples of this government’s plan to strengthen our community and to leave no-one behind.
Madam Deputy Speaker, it is worth remembering just how important concessions are in addressing economic or social disadvantage. Making sure vulnerable and disadvantaged people in our community have access to concessions for transport and basic services is a key pillar to strengthen our community as a whole.
To make it easier for Canberrans to access information on the range of territory government concessions available and the eligibility requirements for each, the ACT government set up a one-stop shop, if you like, an assistance website at Assistance.act.gov.au. It is a place that pulls together information from across the territory and, indeed, Australian government and local community organisations to provide that one-stop shop.
In order to ensure government assistance goes to those who need it most, concessions are generally provided to those most in need on the basis of particular eligibility criteria, most significantly around financial disadvantage, but also taking into account age, special needs, charitable or public benefits status, or other particular circumstances. We have done this in the context of a challenging fiscal environment generally and something that was completely ignored by the shadow minister in his contribution: the significant cuts to concessions funding delivered by his Liberal Party colleagues, who cut the national partnership on concessions.
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